There's No drama like Noh Drama!
by Brithund
Summary: Shirley McLoon's military unit is invited to Japan to help against an Evil Mega-Corporation's dark plans. Unknown to her, she's not the only Acme Looniversity graduate from her class heading there...
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

" **You know," Buster Bunny mused as his family strolled in through the main entrance to Acme Acres' airport, "it generally all starts with a scene with us arriving here on holiday, not heading out. Still, a month back home was good." Early February was a good time to be elsewhere than Acme Acres, after the excitement of Christmas and New Year had faded into the slushy snows. Preferably somewhere with a sunnier climate. Not by pure chance, that was exactly where the rabbit family was headed.**

 **"Bollywood misses us!" His pink-furred wife declared dramatically. "But Japan is on the way there. How convenient! Like the old saying, Go West, young Rabbits! And as we're in California anyway…" she expansively gestured Westwards. "It's our turn to be inscrutable Orientals over there."**

 **"So, you've got a few weeks break before starting on your next film?" Mary Melody asked, the humanmare having helped Babs and Buster carry their luggage to the airport. Her husbands Jaggi and Jack were waiting in the Most_Terrain vehicle in the car park outside.**

 **"That's right. '** _ **You'll be Sari!'**_ **starts shooting next month. This one's quite an action drama. My character gets a great scene where she thinks she's accidentally slain her dear husband in a picnic food-fight." Babs spin-changed into costume and struck a tragic pose.** _ **"Oh!"**_ **She wailed. "** _ **I didn't know the baked potato was loaded!**_ **"**

 **Mary smiled. "I'll try and see that one. And give Merumo my regards when you see her. We got on really well** **,** **that year she was over here."**

 **"Yes, we're staying a week in Neo-Tokyo with her family. A real hard-working girl, Merumo. I remember her getting that Summer job when she was an exchange student here; most toons would have been hanging about relaxing", Buster mused. "She worked at the town's main twenty-four hour store supplying the beach-wear dance scene."**

 **"You know the place. The non-stop crop-top 'n' flip-flop, hip-hop top shop!" Babs nodded brightly. "That was before hip-hop went out of style and everyone got into the Low-Energy Sound. More ecological."**

 **"Yes. One beat every few minutes – and you never know just when. Based on the old Chinese Water Torture." Buster said. "Drip-drop."**

 **Babs spin-changed into her Clubbing form; where once Rave parties had glowed with light-sticks, she wildly waved a symbolic cocktail umbrella against symbolic drip-drops. Her stylish Club was ready for instant use on a quick-release holster in her Hammerspace pocket. "This is all the rage fifteen years from now!"**

 **Mary blinked. "You've been to the future?" The Bunny family had recently dropped out of sight for a week, and it was odd for Babs not to stay in touch.**

 **Babs gave an equivocal paw gesture. "We went back to the Grand Unified Field. It's got six dimensions. One extra space-like, one extra time-like. I like it. It's a grand field."**

 **"We didn't exactly GO to the future," Buster clarified. "But you can see it from there. The same way Hammerspace dimensions uncoil in the Unified Field, letting you see what's stored in there."**

 **"It's hard to explain without going there," Babs said. "And – in six dimensions there's a lot of keen things you can get up to that just don't work here in 4-D." Her pink paw squeezed her athletic buck's cottontail fondly. "We 'Unified' a lot there the first time we visited, even for rabbits. That's where we got little Blitz, and he got his abilities." She cast her loving gaze at their cub, currently asleep in the carrier on Buster's back. "And maybe his siblings will, too. After our – second visit." She put her paws behind her back and wriggled sinuously in belly-dancer mode, a look of contentment on her muzzle** **.**

 **"So, if you've seen the future… you're off to buy surprise high-performing shares, particular lottery tickets and bankrupt a few bookmakers on long-odds bets?" Mary asked.**

 **"Eeh… laws of Toon Physics stop that working." Buster hesitated. "You can't do anything useful with the information without tearing a Plot Hole in the cosmic script. Which we try and avoid." Some things had not changed over the years; he had seen a future copy of the ACME catalogue still offering explosive-tipped boomerangs, leaky bottles of Universal Solvent and home brain surgery kits with mirror attachments for real do-it-yourself fanatics.**

 **"But we can drop some hints," Babs grinned wickedly. "Fifteen years on, we've seen Toon Trek, The Next Generation ™ in class! Would you believe Elmyra's produced the Best and Brightest of the whole bunch?"**

" **Hard to believe, but it'll happen," Buster nodded. "And it's not because the rest of the class are mouldy rutabagas."**

 **Mary nodded, contemplating the facts of Toon life. "If it's Funny, it'll happen," she said. "Probabilities and genetics can go take a long walk off a short cliff, if Comedy pushes them."**

" **Too true! Neither Elmyra nor George reached double IQ figures on their best day," Babs mused "stands to reason Nature was saving it all for later. Not spending many points on that generation so there'll be plenty left for the kids. Four-figure IQs, even."**

 **"Prof Calamity thinks so," Buster said, recalling their old classmate, seen teaching the next generation. The older coyote permanently looked as if he had just crawled out of a train wreck, a consequence of teaching so many crash courses. "Elmyra's son George Junior went straight from kindergarten to Harvard Law School, aced it in two years and did the same at M.I.T. before starting at Acme Loo. Oh, and he's the School's junior Pro Wrestling champion too. Got his father's body, but this one has a brain in it."**

" **Who'd a thunk it?" Babs asked brightly. "A buck who can tie you in knots in a courtroom tussle AND in the wrestling ring!"**

" **Insult and injury combined," Buster nodded. "In one extra-large package."**

 **"Law, Physics and Comedy? You wouldn't think there's much overlap," Mary marvelled.**

 **"He managed it. Will manage it. Our past, his future. Anyway. Ten years from now, Acme Metropolis brings in super-accurate motoring speed trap cameras on the freeway." Buster said. "They can measure your speed to thirty decimal places! But QuanToon Physics says the more accurately you measure an object's velocity, the less certain its position. George Junior persuaded the jury there was 'reasonable doubt" that those motorists getting snapped were even in the same state as the camera, let alone county."**

 **"And probably right out of the traffic cops' jurisdiction," Babs nodded. "Score for the Acme team! His sister's just as bright – but sorta weird."**

 **"A human mother, a rabbit father… I hardly dare to ask," Mary said. "Just what did she get in the mix?"**

 **Buster grinned. "She's a classic Playboy bunny-girl. Natural version, not a costume. Mostly Human, but the bunny ears and tail are 'all her own work.' She's got a set of human ears too, like your daughter Jenny; that's two girls in class with quadrophonic hearing. Just pity anyone who thinks it's just a costume, tries to take them off. She can go bunny-ballistic, kick-boxing style."**

" **Those high-heeled feet are something else!" Babs added brightly. "You go, Tae-Kwon-Doe!"**

" **And they're both red haired and red-furred, taking after Elmyra. Which is kinda weird; Babs tells me Elmyra didn't have a single hair on her body, any colour" Buster said. He paused, thinking hard. "Maybe she had red haired genes somewhere and some other genes telling them to shut up about it – and the next generation left the baldness genes behind."**

" **But kept the hair for their hare heirs" Babs added.**

 **Mary blinked. "So, one sibling's a hunky wrestler and the other a beautiful martial arts star, and they're both super-smart as well? Is that even allowed under the Mary-Sue laws? Plot balance and everything? They must have some really crippling flaws to make up for it."**

 **Babs considered the matter. "Apart from having Elmyra as Mom? Well, they DO wear glasses on camera, even though I'm sure they don't need them. I could tell those 'lenses' are just flat glass."**

 **"So George Junior can play 'mild-mannered reporter' if the plot needs it. And Rymela Junior, she can take hers off at a critical moment and swish her suddenly unbound hair in a slow-motion 'take' as everyone gasps in her suddenly revealed beauty," Buster said. "The old gags still work!" Being the future, there had naturally been a token slightly mechanical-looking girl in class named Ann Royd * who for 'some mysterious reason' vanished towards the Looniversity's power junction box at meal breaks. That nobody in class had yet worked it out was in accordance to Meme 19,** _ **Everyone Missing the Bindingly Obvious**_ **. The Chicken Boo School of method acting taught it as a main course module.**

 *** (Editor's note: the slightly too smooth-looking Ann Royd's middle initial was of course "D". Oddly enough, her 'half-brothers' Matt and Otto Mattick were at Perfecto, studying Creative Accountancy.)**

 **"Oh, there's a Martian Prince sitting in class too, Queen Tyranee's son." Babs noticed Mary's shocked expression. "Yes, I know Martian biology isn't meant to work like that. He came as quite a surprise to everyone. Got exiled to Earth while the Martians try and work it out. Martian biology doesn't 'do' a male version of the Queen Type Eights."**

 **"At least – that's what everyone thought," Buster said. "The Queen included." Martian biology having seventeen and two thirds genders had naturally evolved to fit the planet's ultra-harsh conditions. Making that eighteen and two-thirds would obviously make things complex.**

 **"There are legends, from the earliest Green Time on Mars," Mary said thoughtfully. She smiled. "Maybe I'm due to lend Queen Tyranee Jack and Jaggi again sometime. In the spirit of closer Interplanetary relations, of course."**

 **"I remember. The Queen of Mars found out she liked having – Diplomatic Relations with them," Buster deadpanned. "Maybe there'll be productive outcomes, and I don't mean treaties."**

 **Mary nodded. "So, everyone's kids are in class and Calamity ends up teaching in the School of Hard Knocks. Anyone else we know wind up teaching at the Looniversity?" Calamity was in the news that week, having won a prestigious Physics Prize for his work on extending the Grand Unified Theory to yet grander levels. Explaining just how peer pressure and cussedness fitted in along with gravity, the Electro-weak force and Murphy's Law had been an epoch-making event for Toon Science.**

 **Buster grinned. "We saw that rich kid trying to get a job … ex rich-kid. He needed a job after the IRS cleaned him out, down to the last nickel."**

" **How we laughed! Shall laugh. Will in the future have laughed," Babs said brightly. "What was he called? Minnesota Munchkin or something?"**

 **"I can never remember his name either," Mary shrugged. "Nobody seems to."**

 **"Well, he went for the Super-Hero tutor post, claimed he has amazing luminous properties. But glowing in the dark isn't an approved Super-talent, he's just radioactive. Had to wear sunglasses for years just to get any sleep, the way he shines." Buster's ears twitched gleefully. "That's the only time anyone's ever called him bright."**

 **"Principal Bugs told him a chunk of PluToonium from the Acme Catalogue could do that cheaper, and be less toxic sitting in class," Babs added. "Sent him off with a flea in his ear and a jar of itching-powder down the pants. The ol' grey hare has still got it!"**

 **"Quite a class he's picked that year. Plenty of drama potential built right in. Having a traditional Hollywood Red Indian sitting next to an authentic Native American – well, the feathers will fly." Buster said.**

 **"Arrows and tomahawks too!" Babs put in brightly.**

 **"There's a vegan wolf and a carnivorous mutant sheep sitting right next to each other as well – that's another daily drama just waiting to happen." Buster looked at the clock on the wall of the terminal building. "Time we were making tracks," he suggested.**

 **"And I don't mean tracks for a tank factory!" Babs chimed in cheerily. "Not to be a back-burrow driver Buster but – make sure we get the right Japan. The Anime one, not the cyberpunk one or the historical one."**

 **"Natural blonde girls with four-inch blue eyes, check," Buster nodded. "Anime humans with cute tails and cat-ears, check. Others with bunny ears."**

 **"Elmyra can tell you just how their mothers arranged that," Babs smiled knowingly. "An all-natural, cruelty-free fur coat, even. The gift that keeps on giving."**

 **"Do you think you'll meet Gogo Dodo over there, even without looking for him?" Mary asked. "I know it's a big country, but the Law of Conservation of Characters is international."**

 **"Expect so," Buster said. "I've heard he's really gone Native. Assimilated."**

 **"Not that big a change for him** **,** **Japan has a high ambient Weirdness field; he needs one" Babs said. "He's just gone from one Wacky-land to another, sure he'll blend right in. Like that snake-haired girl we met in Wacky-land last trip; she's from Greece but assimilated here. Gosh-darn proud of it, too." Her long ears writhed sinuously in parody of the girl's scaly hairstyle, and she struck a Statue of Liberty pose. "There's always a USA in MedUSA!" She proclaimed** **,** **and hugged Mary farewell.**

 **Buster settled the cub-carrier on his shoulders; the ludicrously fuzzy ears of their son just poked out. Fortunately little Blitz was fast asleep, which meant his Circular Area of Probability fitted inside the carrier *. "Got to go. Japan's so many time zones away it's probably next month there already."**

 *** (Editor's note: a rabbit of sufficient fuzziness, such as a young cub, cannot be said to have an exact position. QuanToon Uncertainly can at best only assign a reference point and a 90% chance they will be within a certain distance of it when not observed. It makes designing playpens an interesting job.)**

" **See you in the movies!" Mary waved as the bunnies walked out onto the airfield – spun up to full rabbit drilling speed then vanished Westwards as a double-width furrow of displaced earth. After all this time, she reflected, Buster still hated flying. They could have started tunnelling from anywhere, of course – but heading out overseas from an airport was too strong a trope for any Toon to ignore.**

* * *

 **Back across Acme Acres that afternoon, an army-surplus shop had a "Help Wanted" sign in the window. But it was not a sales clerk well versed in the variants of genuine unissued Marine Corps M1956 pattern lingerie that the store's backroom inhabitants were seeking. There was a long queue of Toons being interviewed for some rather different vacancies.**

 **In the back room, Colonel Hal Fenix sat at a desk with Shirley McLoon and the other three Third Lieutenants of Unit Four Plus Two. On the desk were a pile of military personnel folders, and in front of the desk the latest candidate for a job.**

 **Shirley looked very carefully at the Toon standing in front of the desk wearing insignia-free military-style clothing. He was a brown-feathered waterfowl of medium build with a sharp, medium length beak unlike her own flat bill, and looked emaciated. A Northern Rail, she thought, skimming through a mental list of water birds "Like, there's a familiar face. I've seen you around here." Suddenly her eyes widened as her memory triggered. "You used to work across the street, right opposite. That grody 'Tattoo Parlour and Laser Removal' place that shut down last week."**

 **"I used to." The rail said sadly. "That was my old unit; I'm the sole survivor. Dangerous game. Unit got disbanded."**

 **"Tattooing is a dangerous business?" Shirley said incredulously. "Since when?"**

 **Colonel Fenix gave a slight cough. "Like us based at the Military Surplus shop, his unit hid in plain sight – they were a '** _ **Nineteen percent more Special than those so-called Special Forces dudes over there**_ **' Unit; unfortunately their last overseas Laser Removal mission went extremely wrong. The 'laser' they went after, wasn't. It was a Dip Particle Accelerator Beam instead."**

 **"And that, we couldn't handle," the rail said. "We got handed bad intelligence."**

 **"Poor preparation; it happens," Colonel Felix nodded sympathetically. "I was sent out on an Antarctic mission once that ended as badly. We'd been issued Arctic camouflage. Stood out like a sore thumb, of course." He paused. "As to the vacancy, we'll let you know."**

 **As the rail left the room, he picked up what he had left at the door in Corporal Barnes' care – a bulky, sci-fi looking rifle with electrical coils wrapped round the barrel, the whole thing wired to a backpack.**

 **"Nice hardware," Angelina nodded. "That's not standard issue."**

 **Colonel Fenix cast a professional eye that way. "He has what's standard for the species** **,** **" the phoenix deadpanned. "He's rail-thin, and carries a railgun."**

 **Shirley groaned.**

 **Hal picked up another folder, opened it and frowned as he skimmed it. "Not this one." He put the folder down, shaking his head sadly. "I knew him; he used to be good. Retrieved the only known piece of Cosmic String on the planet. Of course, it'd been found years ago and mistaken for ordinary string. Ended up at the core of the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota, with tourists driving for miles to see it, He managed to untie and extract it without anyone noticing."**

" **Like, sounds our kind of Toon, dude sir," Shirley said cautiously.**

 **Hal sighed. "I'm afraid not. Dangerous missions take their toll. Never was the same again, since that zombie ate his brain."**

 **Calgari looked at the remaining papers. "Sir. What about this one, the goat girl with the skull for a head? She'd make a great Media Liaison officer. The smiling, public face of our Unit. Grinning, even."**

 **"Si! Mucho sexy, too," Tlalacopa enthused. "Also, bare skull can tell REALLY bare-faced lie. Is perfect for Media toons."**

 **"And what a poker face!" Angelina marvelled. "I'd love to play with her as a partner." She winked. "And at cards too."**

 **Shirley's normally pale plumage went even paler as she looked at the photograph. "Like, mondo eww. How does that even work?"**

 **The phoenix gave a wry grin. "Lieutenant McLoon, in this business we just get on with it and let our unit's Embedded Philosopher worry about the how and why."**

 **"And that's another post still vacant, Sir," Calgari said hopefully. "May I apply, Sir?"**

 **"Yes, you may apply. As you did for the Chaplain's post, and the Public Relations post. And you will be considered fairly, on your merits." Colonel Fenix said. He paused, and cast the raven a wry grin. "Sorry, you didn't get it. Next candidate please!"**

 **Shirley shook her head ruefully. She remembered Colonel Fenix describing how Unit Four Plus Two had started, in the aftermath of The Peoria Incident (an event so classified that even those involved were not cleared to know about it.) Suddenly the room shivered and blurred, as she felt a flashback starting.**

 _ **The scene: a military office, mostly filled with a large and battle-scarred desk. It held a unit pennon, a desk sign reading "Gen. Snafu, 2 ½ Star) and a part-corroded rubber bath duck toy about which it was best not to speculate. The General was a plain-featured human Toon with a grumpy expression, who was standing behind his desk facing a rather younger Phoenix, wearing Major's insignia.**_

 _ **General Snafu snorted. "That was a fine job, Major - keeping the lid on in Peoria. We can only hope the world will never find out the truth."**_

" _ **Yes, Sir," the younger Hal Fenix said soberly. "A double event of such magnitude it drove all the witnesses insane – twice over. Fortunately the second shock drove them sane again, and none of them now remember." Being driven round the twist was, medically speaking, a 180-degree manoeuvre and another half turn of the dial would take a Toon 360 degrees, back to where they started from.**_

 _ **The General paused, and sat down. "I can see how we need a force like you have in mind. But the Army doesn't much go for mages, wizards and psychic talents. I have to sell the idea somehow to the General Staff. Suggestions?"**_

 _ **The phoenix smiled. "We could downplay calling our talents those names. And say we have troops trained for 'Operating in a harsh Triple-P Environment' That's a bunch of buzz-words they might like. We invent a special Classification so high that only Toons who already know can be told."**_

 _ **"Could work," the general mused. "And 'Triple-P'"?**_

" _ **Psychic, Psychological and Psychiatric," the phoenix said smoothly. "Not that we ever come out and say it. I have a suggested name, too. 'Unit Four Plus Two.' It comes with 'inbuilt Psychiatric Warfare intrusion defence'. Which will tick plenty of boxes in the official buzz-word bingo games, in its own right."**_

 _ **The general checked the 'Card, Terminology Buzzword M1983 Special Forces Issue' on his desk, drew a line and raised an eyebrow. "Unit Four Plus Two. What does that even mean?" He demanded.**_

 _ **"It means absolutely nothing, Sir." Hal Fenix winked. 'That's the Psychiatric anti-intruder bit. Any hostile Toons trying to crack it… it'll drive them nuts trying to work it out!"**_

 **The flashback faded.**

 **The current Hal Fenix stood up. "Getting reinforcements, that'll have to wait till we get back. It was too much to hope we could get someone so easily. Now, Sergeant Gander – fire up your travel shtick, and find us something fast. We have to get to Japan!"**

* * *

 **Ten hours later a sleep-deprived and frazzled Shirley set her webbed feet on the concourse of Neo-Tokyo's main airfield. She had not enjoyed her flight across the Pacific, and was not at all sure the aircraft's engines burned wholemeal non-genetically modified soybean oil, holistically farmed and hand -pressed by ethnic crafts persons. 'Somehow' her easy-listening supply of harmonious whale song she had picked for relaxation on the flight had been substituted for a triple album of '** _ **Extreme Grindcore ear busters!'**_ **A certain Addams Academy trio were looking smug, but these days they often did. Her carefully chosen travel book on Sacred and Holy sites of Japan had similarly been swapped with an extra-lurid guide to the Accursed and Profane ones.**

 **"Like, that is so NOT my idea of harmonious transport," Looking out of the concourse window she spotted her ride rolling on the runway, already turned round and ready to depart. It was a classic 1950's model, and she winced as she recalled where she had seen it before, in Plucky's radically uncool military aircraft books. A sleek needle-nosed delta-winged bomber, four engines hung on pods under the wing, and a big streamlined pod faired under the fuselage now converted to basic passenger accommodation. Unlike the Mach 2 bombers in the old photographs she had seen, this one was painted bright orange and prominently bore the company logo '** _ **Oodles of Poodles! Emergency express poodle delivery worldwide!**_ **' Clarke Gander's Travel shtick had an option for Deniable travel, it seemed.**

 **"Well, a slow boat sailing on the trade winds to China may be eco-friendly but TOO slow," Colonel Fenix pointed out. "Even if Japan isn't quite as far. Besides, flying by Conv-Air has a certain style."**

 **"Oh yes!" Angelina Angelique's eyes gleamed. "I loved that full-power flyby we did over Beverley Hills at palm-top height. Trailing that awesome supersonic shockwave over the suburbs was quite some 'shock and awe!' Livened everyone's day, fer sure."**

 **"Never seen all the water jump out of a swimming pool before," Calgari mused. "And the bathers with it. You'd pay a fortune for a wave machine that energetic. Aren't we generous?" He waved farewell as their totally, obviously civilian transport lit all four afterburners, streaked down the runway and blasted into the sky to rendezvous again with the 'innocently civilian' refuelling tanker awaiting it West of Hawaii. "There he goes, Conv-Air Deniable airlines flight B58. He's really hustling and bustling along."**

 **Shirley looked at the trio as they changed out of their nondescript travel clothing into more elaborate outfits, Angelina sliding a garish party dress over slick black and white feathers. "I thought we were meant to like, blend in with the crowd. We're on a mondo deniable mission, or some junk?"**

 **"Hey, this is part of my civilian disguise." Angelina patted the hat; it had a large bulge on top, shrouded by an opaque cloth cover. "I've been studying high fashion design," she said conversationally. "I'd never imagined the possibilities before** **.** **"**

 **Shirley looked on sourly. "You're into high fashion? There is totally nothing you uncool types can't twist to the Dark Side, fer sure."**

 **"Oh, we try our best," Angelina said modestly. She tapped a random tourist on the shoulder, and held the hat out invitingly. "Hey, salary-man-san! What do you think of my new look?" She pulled the cover off.**

 **The tourist, a stout panda, turned to look. His eyes grew wide, and his jaw hit the ground with a clang in a Horrified Astonishment Wild Take (#26 in Professor Porky's book, Shirley recognised.) With a muffled shriek he backed away in terror, dropping his luggage – then turned tail and fled, still screaming.**

 **"Nice," Calgari nodded appreciatively, as the magpie re-shielded the advanced fashion feature. "Not seen one of those before. They could really catch on. There'd be some real yowling on the catwalks."**

 **Angelina winked. "I'm thinking of patenting it. Got the idea from a clothing accessory they put on fancy hats, called a 'fascinator.' I used the same technology to make a 'horrifier.' Neat or what?"**

 **Shirley turned away, shuddering. Just then she noticed a familiar shape in the crowd, and cast a tight-beam thought to Colonel Fenix** _ **. It's your like opposite number, dude Sir**_ **.**

 **Colonel Fenix turned and waved, recognising a familiar silhouette. "Konnichi-wa, Major Terata! It's good to be back." He bowed to the JPSDF (Japanese Pre-Emptive Self Defence Force) officer.**

 **"Now there is someone who REALLY believes in** _ **'two heads are better than one'**_ **" Calgari nodded, impressed. "Practices what he preaches, too."**

 **"Yes, but just think of getting a stereo headache!" Angelina whispered back.**

 **Tlalocopa looked around hopefully. "No see any of his clowns with him," she complained. "Last time we worked well with them and Beautiful Mutant Battalion."**

 **"Shame. Clowns are SO sexy, don't you think?" Angelina's expression was dreamy. "And mimes. Aren't they just adorable? Whenever I see a mime, I start imagining dragging him off the street for 'a quiet night in', if you know what I mean?" She nudged Shirley knowingly. "Who doesn't love the strong, silent type?"**

 **"It's the white painted faces. Very Gothick," Calgari said. "Though over here that's not what it means, traditionally. Though there are real Japanese goths as well; it's a civilised country." There were also Baroques and Rococo styled Toons, and over by Duty-free he had spotted a Romanesque.**

 **"I like it. Oh, those Anime types. The eyeballs! I'm starving hungry every time we're here." Angelina licked her sharp corvid beak hungrily. "Eyeballs, eyeballs everywhere – nor any one to eat." She paused, cocking her head aside. "At least you get whale on the menu, though – that's something."**

 **Shirley turned away and studied a canine girl in Major Terata's group who wore a tightly sealed bright yellow hazmat suit in the classic DEVO style and a surgical face-mask with goggles that left none of her fur showing. It looked very hot in there. "She doesn't look like a mutant," Shirley observed. "More like a regular Labrador, fer sure."**

 **Major Terata flashed a pair of tight smiles. "Her mother is, yes. Father is poodle. But she is – different to usual mix. Counts as mutant."**

 **Angelina shrugged. "What's the use of a Labradoodle in our business? World's soppiest dog, that's official in the Guinness Book of Records," she yawned. "Bred to be hypoallergenic, for Toons who can't take dog fur."**

 **The twin heads nodded in sync. "Not her. One percent of such are Poodladors. Very different." He pulled out a laptop and showed a security camera film of the canine facing a rioting crowd alone. Her mask and suit shed on quick-release catches as she charged towards them – before she even touched the rioters they were scythed down almost as if hit by a Toon skunk's scent weapon. Some were breaking out in instant Technicolor™ blotches, keeling over racked and sneezing convulsed in third-degree hay fever or with some extremities ballooning out in instant allergic shock.**

 **"Hyper-Allergenic. I like it!" Angelina declared. "And – if she's a reverse Labradoodle… I bet she's got the personality of a starved pit bull who hates everyone personally?"**

 **"She's our Evil Liaison Officer," Major Terata said. "Was type-cast."**

 **"You know the trope, Lieutenant McLoon," Colonel Fenix said. "Most Anime films, you have to talk to the man from the government – sharp suited, broad shouldered, sunglasses, cigarette, ironic and cynical attitude. You've seen him. Makes sense to have someone in your unit tapped to deal with him – and with Evil Mega-Corporations too."**

 **"On this mission," Shirley nodded thoughtfully, recalling just who Gogo Dodo currently worked for "That will be – mondo useful."**

* * *

 **Meanwhile back at the ranch, or rather in the snowy woods at the side of Mount Acme, someone else was preparing to travel. In the hallway sat a carefully packed set of Assault Bagpipes, safely deactivated and pre-sealed for air transit by Customs, ready to be collected. The bagpipes' pyrophoric tri-ethyl borane fuel was ready awaiting at its player's destination; airlines made such a fuss about carrying such things in carry-on luggage.**

 **"Whoo-hoo!" Plucky enthused as he took a last look at the extra-wide TV set in his family's living room. "I get to jam again with the band, on film! Fowlmouth and the guys are touring in Japan and we get to shoot the film there." He pointed at the lively performance on the screen. "Since their last gig they've upgraded the Flugelhorn. Look, you can tell." The 485mm Advanced Flugelhorn's white-hot exhaust was blasting into the concert hall's flame trench, with hundreds of gallons of water a second sprayed in to delay the stage melting till the final track. "See that dark band at the start of the exhaust plume? They feed cooler turbo-pump gases into the chamber, cools the nozzle."**

 **"Mmmm." Margot relaxed on the couch. "We'll all miss you. Have fun with the band over there. Tell Mitzi Avery congratulations from me on her happy news** **.** **My own little bundle of joy shouldn't be arriving till you get back. But with storks – who knows?" She sensuously caressed the stork feather that sat in her considerable cleavage as she finished off the box of chocolates she had been munching through; in the Crowninshield Mansion nursery there were three ducklings to feed, and the calories she ate never stayed in her long enough to change her stunning figure. It was a hard life, she reflected as she rang her ever-attentive maids Gladys and Gracie for more gateaux.**

 **"Sure!" Plucky posed triumphantly. "They're filming on location in Neo-Tokyo. We get to shoot the whole thing on location, up against the evil Audiophobe and his tone-deaf minions. It'll be better than anything the Radioactive Teenage Samurai Slugs ™ ever did! And there's nobody I know over there. What can possibly go wrong?"**

 **"What indeed?" Margot's eyebrow rose. "Have fun, dear." She kissed her husband farewell, waved as the taxi departed in a flurry of snow-chains a few minutes later, and returned to her warm boudoir.**

 **"Has he gone, Margot?" Gracie asked, pausing in her dusting. As always, she and her partner wore the top parts of traditional frilled maid outfits, lovingly crafted and sewn by each other.**

 **Margot gave a heavy sigh, but there was a twinkle in her eye. "My dear husband – his Duty to fame and fortune calls him away, earning a meagre crust to support his poor wife and hungry hatchlings. My bed will be cold and lonely all Winter. Which at least gives my poor body time to recover from all the outrageous demands I can't deny my lawful husband. No matter how strange." She sat down heavily, in a tragic pose she had lifted from her acquaintances who had studied at Acme Loo. "Left abandoned at home, no life beyond the kitchen and bedroom, kept barefoot and pregnant."**

 **The two maids exchanged glances. "But you're the one with all the money," Gracie suggested hesitantly. "And all the… exotic ideas."**

 **"If anyone 'wears the pants' around here, it's you," Gladys pointed out.**

 **"Well, there is that," Margot snickered, patting the sofa seats on each side of her. "I do my best to provide," she said conversationally. "Now. Household. Is there anything you need? How's the custom incubator working out?" She cast a glance over to the lovingly hand-woven nest in the corner of the room, where two large plain light blue duck eggs sat under a carefully monitored set of heat lamps with emergency backups available.**

 **"It's fine. On our own we couldn't have afforded even the ACME one – and we wouldn't want to risk it if we could. I've heard things about that model." Gladys shuddered. "One of us would have had to quit work and sit on the eggs full time."**

 **Margot nodded; she kept quiet about the report she had read about the ACME 'hatcher's handy helpmeet' on Page 19 of the catalogue whose controls included undocumented settings for poached, hard boiled and 'over easy.' A thought struck her. "How do you tell those eggs apart? I can't, and I've looked."**

 **"We don't," Gracie said firmly. "They're not 'one's mine the other's Gladys', they're ours between us. That's all that matters."**

 **"All one big, happy family," Margot smiled. The maids' firstborn hatchlings Millie and Molly slept in their cots in the next room, along with her young Douglas 'Dauntless' Duck. Brandi and Candi were happier in the igloo they had made out in the forest, when they were not at their grandmother's house rapidly learning to read from dread volumes of forbidden lore that most Toon researchers needed surgically modified minds to understand.**

 **"Yes. Thank you, Margot – for Everything." Gladys nestled closer to the taller mallard. "We've everything we always wanted – thanks to you. We never expected eggs. We'd have been happy if it was just by the stork – we didn't even get that till we met you. "**

 **"Mmm. Glad to help." Margot's eyes twinkled wickedly in a special-effect most film stars would have envied. "It's just a matter of a little knowledge in the right place, and a little – application. And I do so enjoy – applying it to you both."** _ **And will again, I think**_ **, she thought lightly. At New Year she had asked Gladys and Gracie to tell her when they had enough hatchlings, which they had not – and until they did so –** _ **anything goes**_ **.**

 **"Things like fertility hospitals and doctors just won't work on Toons who want an egg," Gracie sighed. "Not that we could have afforded it anyway. Clinics and equipment, that kind of thing just wouldn't help." Simply being a happily loving couple for years, even if one of them had been male, had small chance of signalling a stork to call for them, and she and Gladys had worried their nest would be forever empty.**

 **"Oh, I don't know…" Margot's gleam intensified. "The right kind of science, in the right – situation. Tubes and a big plunger involved, certainly. It just has to be extreme enough. Something like this…" she summoned her will and projected a scene not unlike the Christmas play Babs' brother Mortimer had directed a few months earlier.**

 **"The hapless heroine, abducted the very day of her wedding… becomes the test subject of the Relaxed Sanity Scientiste's latest, greatest 'Fascinating Experiment ™'," she proclaimed as the scene unfolded. "Trapped in the coils of the sinister Device while the big display timer counts towards zero and the handsome hero fights manfully through the castle's deranged defences."**

 **To Margot's left and right there was the stereo effect of slight popping sounds as two toons 'unconcealed,' music to her ears.**

 **Gladys wriggled, and riffled through the ACME catalogue's Adult supplement on the coffee table next to her. "Something like – page nine – and she could use... page twelve, and sixteen too?"**

 **"You really are learning, dear." Margot's voice was an almost feline purr as she held the scene in visualisation. "And so is the hapless heroine." She snickered. "Back at Perfecto, we'd say anyone who let themselves ever be that helpless, deserves everything they get." She paused, turning from one face to another. "I'd be interested to see what you'd do with the scene."**

 **Gladys looked up, as the dashing hero struggled to free his bride-to-be from glistening tubes and coils. "The countdown is still at forty seconds, he thinks he's got plenty of time. What they don't know is, the lady Scientiste is so much smarter than the hero. It triggers when the clock reads twenty-nine, not zero."**

 **"Which turns out to be… five seconds too late to be rescued." Gracie said breathlessly. ""The big plunger – plunges. Tubes bulge. Oh wow." She wriggled her tail, eyes wide. "It'd be even worse – and work better – if the heroine found out she – secretly likes that sort of thing."**

 **Margot nodded. "And that is exactly the kind of thing that would work – especially if they marry in church the next day and think it's all over – until they and the midwife get rather a shock a few months later. Non-Toons evolve through Survival of the fittest. We don't need to; we survive anyway, Dip aside. To Multiply by Melodrama, is more our style."**

 **"I was reading in the ACME News last week," Gracie said, a puzzled look on her bill. "There's the list of local births for the past year. It's only about a dozen, all over town, for a hundred and twenty thousand people." She paused. "I know all these names! It's like there was a quota, and the people we know who went to Acme Loo and Perfecto got the whole city's stork ration!"**

 **"Mmm." Margot relaxed, sitting back as she unbuttoned her blouse to her maids' delight and they pressed closer. Having her husband away for months at a time was a great strain, she thought, but she 'somehow' managed to cope. "Who knows why? Maybe we were all at the same party when that meme strolled into town. As they always said at Acme Loo – 'it's a Toon Thing.'"**

* * *

 **Three hours later, Plucky Duck was relaxing in the first-class cabin of the flight from Acme Acres to Neo-Tokyo, flicking idly through the onboard cable TV channels – there was no wireless, the airliner being strictly fly-by-wire.**

 **"Crummy commercials. Middle of the Pacific Ocean, and they still find you", the duck groused. Then one caught his eye. A familiar sort of scene; evidently a film shoot on location, some distant island paradise like Bikini Atoll. A harried Props toon was standing dejectedly in front of a domineering type who sat enthroned in a Director's chair.**

 **"** _ **Sir – it's the petting-zoo scene." The Props toon shook his head sadly. "These rabid mutant wolverines just aren't working out. Nearly as bad as the starving honey badgers. Who'd a thought it?"**_

 _ **The Director sat a moment in thought, then a special-effects lightbulb sprang into existence above his head. "So, skip the wolverines. What we need for this scene is – poodles!"**_

 _ **The Props toon looked round the distant island, evidently far from the shopping malls and delivery trucks of Civilisation. "But we have to finish shooting the scene today. Where are we going to find three hundred trained poodles around here, right now?"**_

 _ **Everyone froze as their scene suddenly became a static 2-D backdrop and a wolf in a sharp business suit strolled confidently across front stage. "Yes, where indeed? Only at –" he stepped back as a glowing company logo materialised centre screen "Oodles of Poodles! Your number one choice in express worldwide poodle delivery!" There was a roar of engines as a bright orange fleet of repurposed jet bombers thundered low overhead. Open bomb bays poured out streams of small parachutes**_ _ **,**_ _ **each with a curly-coated, fuzzy passenger yipping excitedly. "That's where!"**_

 **"Ha! As if." Plucky scoffed, flicking channels. "Whoever believes that kinda advert? They can't fool me." He looked out of the window, and blinked at the sight of a bright orange Convair B-58 streaking back Eastwards towards California with afterburners lit, perhaps to pick up another urgent poodle resupply. On its tail fin was a commercial logo he had just seen. His bill fell open in astonishment. "Well, whaddya know? They really do."**

 **Just then, an oriental vixen walked past his seat and stopped, her eyes wide. "Excuse, Sir – are you Plucky Duck? Film star? Hero Captain W with amazing Wombat powers?"**

 **Plucky cast her his most winning smile, his hard-to-biologically-explain teeth gleaming. "Why yes! I have that honour. And forthcoming rock legend of the year." A pen appeared in his feather-hand. "An orderly queue for autographs, please."**

 **The vixen smiled back, her tail flicking so fast Plucky could almost swear there was more than one of them. "Thank you. But we are in rock band as well. PluToonium metal band, heading out on tour. Band name Ore of Boron."**

 **For the second time in a minute the duck gaped in astonishment. "You're our support band! Fowlmouth told me there was a Japanese one this trip. You're heading for Neo-Tokyo too?" Fowlmouth's band had toured with many of Plucky's favourite indie bands – Skabbi Kittn, the Drilltones and 'FOOOF is Satan's Kimchi'.**

 **"Yes, Plucky-san," the vixen bowed politely. "I am Michiko, lead singer. Want to meet band?" She gestured back towards Economy Class. "We all on row eighty-seven."**

 **Plucky glanced at the crowded seats where non-film-stars squeezed in like sardines. "Bring them all over!" He waved magnanimously at the empty first-class seats around him. "Upgrade. My treat."**

 **A minute later, Michiko was back. With her was what Plucky thought was a mutant raccoon * who was introduced as Shinobu their lead guitarist, and a strange grey scaled, winged girl called Naoko, the drummer. Her figure was statuesque, with a skin texture resembling finely polished granitic concrete.**

 *** (Editor's note: Plucky never paid attention in any class not taught by his idol Professor Daffy. He wouldn't have recognised a Japanese Tanuki if one lap-danced for him wearing a** _ **'Miss Tanuki of the year'**_ **T-shirt.)**

 **Plucky scratched his head, puzzled. "Are you some kinda dragon?"**

 **Naoko smiled. "No, Plucky-san. I am gargoyle. Have stone based chromoplasm."**

 **Plucky shrugged, and smiled back. "Hey, that's great! A gargoyle? So, you're a real heavy Rock chick!"**

 **Naoko giggled, the sound seeming odd from the very solid figure. "Hai, Plucky-san. Play drums in band. Steel chemical drums."**

 **"Hmm. Steel drums, lead guitar and a metal singer," Plucky nodded. "Sounds like you'll fit right in."**

 **"Hai, Plucky-san. We so heavy metal, always charged excess baggage." Michiko's ears drooped. "Never afford first class before."**

 **"Well, you're with me now. Enjoy the ride!" Plucky patted the luxurious seats next to him as he signalled the stewardess to make the arrangements. Sitting in first-class with an all-girl Anime metal band hanging on his every word, he thought – life just doesn't get better than this.**

 **"Plucky-San," Michiko asked, looking him over. "In band. What you play?"**

 **Plucky's grin spread. "I used to play plain bagpipes, back in school. Now I've a fancy set. It even keeps up with our band's flugelhorn. Now, that's some instrument."**

 **"We hear. All Hokkaido hear when it plays," Shinobu chimed in musically. "They say … it rebuilt from rocket engine?"**

 **"You're talking to the right mallard about that." A mallard sat back, basking in the attention, sure as ever that his hours playing Retro Rocket Rumble had been as useful an education as anything at Acme Loo. "Years ago in the Apollo moon rocket days, folk worked out the blast of the main engines at launch pumped out enough acoustic energy to break every construction line in a Toon's body, out to three hundred yards from the launch pad. Lots of rock groups read about that and went '** _ **cool! Want one like that in our band!**_ **' "**

 **Michiko nodded happily. "Hai! Is High-Energy sound! Like you play with flugelhorn."**

 **"Sure!" Plucky enthused. "And have we got one! It's a souped-up, air breathing descendant of that project. You'll love it." He idly passed over the story Fowlmouth had told about the gig where the windows of the concert venue were sealed shut, and their main instrument's voracious air inlet had sucked all the air out of the building, leaving everyone floating weightless in the vacuum holding their breath while doing bulging-eyeball gags. Exactly where the gravity had gone was an interesting question, but deep space conditions traditionally went together with weightlessness, and presumably it was a 'meme thing.'**

 **"This will be our first film," Shinobu said, looking at Plucky awe-struck. "And they say, you starring again as Captain W." A Wombat-themed hero was not so amazing, seeing as all the more obvious animal super-heroic powers such as bat, spider and aardvark had been registered and heavily trademarked years ago with dire legions of ferocious lawyers hungrily scouring the world for any scent of copyright infringement.**

 **"A star's a star," Plucky said proudly. "You'll love this. Everyone will, but you get to see it first. Lucky you." He looked round conspiratorially. "This film starts with a flash-back to where I got my astounding powers. I'm exploring in the Australian outback, and these Aborigines mistake me for a non-sentient duck." He blocked the uncomfortable memory of various exam results back at Acme Loo that had suggested the same. "Anyway – I get bitten by this radioactive shaman! Last meal he ate was a wombat, so…" he broke off, grinning. "But hey, I'll leave you some surprises!"**

* * *

 **Babs and Buster tunnelled out of Hammerspace into a world slightly less chilly than Acme Acres – but not by much. Next to Neo-Tokyo's airport here was a grove of cherry trees just about to flower, with snow on the ground and a distant view of temples and skyscrapers. Naturally, they had emerged at the airport but outside the inner security barriers – there was no point in travelling by rabbit-hole (the tiny maximum size of space physicists' famous wormholes only suited their small friend Bookworm) just to have the hassle of security and passport control at the far side.**

 **"Looks like we came to the right place," Buster mused as he looked about the public side of the airport "they even used reference material this time!" Evidently they had arrived at the right version of Japan; in the Realist and Cyberpunk alternates there would not be fully costumed Ninja walking around in broad daylight without attracting any comment. It was always easier tunnelling West rather than East from Acme Acres – the further they got from the mysterious Bermuda Triangle style Hammerspace distortions around Albuquerque, the better.**

 **"Only the best for guests." A voice from behind them was one they recognised. They turned to see Merumo, there to meet and greet. She was a tall Anime human girl with typical Japanese features such as three-inch wide blue eyes, naturally pink hair and a nose whose geometry somehow seemed inconsistent in front and side views. "Babs-san! Buster-san! Welcome to Japan!"**

 **"'Babs-san' sounds like a feminine hygiene product…" Babs winked "but hidy, Merumo! It's been ages!" The girls embraced. "Last time we met, we were both single."**

 **"And now Babs is available in money-saving six-packs!" Buster quipped. "Only time Mrs High Maintenance here ever saved anyone money."**

 **"Oh, you," Babs glanced back at him fondly. "Where's your husband, Merumo? I've never met the Legendary Overfiend."**

 **Merumo looked downcast for a second. "We not see him this trip. Cannot stay on Earth till the Stars are Right."**

 **"Ohhh... I remember now. You T-mailed me about that." Babs turned to Buster and winked. "It's a MiskaToonic Thing. Her husband lives off somewhere called the Warp."**

 **"Sounds a bit like the Grand Unified Field. Adds a whole new dimension to honeymooning," Buster deadpanned. "Several, even."**

 **Babs nodded. Suddenly she noticed her pink-furred paws were muddy, a common penalty of burrow travelling. "Just a second! Must freshen up." She stepped into the Toonettes' toilets for her toilette. Paws washed and brushed, she was about to rejoin her family and friends when her long ears picked up the sound of a toilet flushing – instantly followed by cries of shock and dismay. A few seconds later the same came from another cubicle, each of which bore the prominent logo of the Watasawa Gratuitously Heavy Engineering Mega-Corporation.**

 **"Hmm," Babs tapped her chisel teeth lightly as she skipped out on the cutest toes in Neo-Tokyo, now once again impeccably brushed. "Sounds like some airline went over the top on serving the five-alarm Carolina Reaper chilli this flight." Not only the aircraft around here had afterburn, she thought.**

 **She and Buster followed Merumo out of the airport to the city's Ludicrously Rapid Mass Transit System, and in a few frames of elapsed film they were in the far suburbs at the family home. The door was opened by an astonishingly youthful woman wearing a kimono, looking like a barely five years older version of Merumo.**

 _ **It's not just Western Toons who keep their looks**_ **, Babs noted. She had seen the meme; Anime women stayed in the same shape from their teens till they suddenly flipped to the 'old lady' trope almost overnight. It was a hard role to play but someone had to do it. She had seen Acme Loo's token oldster Granny in films from World War Two when she was in the Secret Service, and she had been beautiful then.**

 **"Mrs. Matsutake? I've only seen your pictures," Buster bowed respectfully. "Merumo told us about you. And showed us some of your action films from, the 1970's and '80's."**

" **Hai. Local tradition. We start and finish early," Mrs Matsutake said, bowing to her guests. "At seven years old I was a Magical Pretty Girl. At twelve, was Sailor-suit Heroine. At seventeen, joined Science Ninja Team Moriboshi as junior monster-kicker. Age twenty - hung up the Sentai team mask and costume, looked for career and husband." She smiled. "Same company Merumo now works for, Chindogu-Corps."**

 **"Chindogu. I know that name," Buster said thoughtfully. "Isn't it practical-looking but useless inventions, like self-brushing shoes?" Where some unpopular films were only released direct to video, many Chindogu items were bought then went straight to the hall closet forevermore. It was a great boost to the economy, apparently.**

 **"Hai!" Merumo nodded proudly. "Mother worked on the folding commuter stand. A prop under your chin, lets you sleep standing up on packed commuter trains. In theory."**

 **"Every home must have one," said Buster dryly, spotting pairs of self-walking shoes neatly arranged on a rack by the door. "What are you working on?"**

 **Merumo looked around nervously. "Still in process. Special driving safety alarm clock."**

 **Babs blinked. "I've heard of those already," she complained. "Like if you start to fall asleep at the wheel, it detects it and wakes you up?"**

 **"Oh, no. That not my project. You set this for when you scheduled to arrive at work," Merumo whispered conspiratorially. "So – if you fall asleep driving, this wakes you up when you get there!"**

 **"A great boon," Mrs Matsutake beamed, waving them indoors.**

 **Babs looked down at her adorable toes. She had occasionally worn shoes as part of costumes, though tended to compensate if she really needed sensible shoes by pairing them with utterly ludicrous socks. "Buster," she whispered to her husband's ear "first shopping trip here – I need a pair of shoes."**

 **Buster had sensibly given up a while ago, trying to understand Babs' logic. "Any particular reason?" he asked in neutral tones.**

 **"We're entering a Japanese home, blue-boy," Babs whispered, looking down in mild irritation at her and her buck's habitually bare paws. "We're meant to take our shoes off first – and dressed like this, we can't!"**

* * *

 **Not far across the city, Shirley followed Colonel Fenix and the members of the Beautiful Mutant Battalion into an anonymous warehouse where a range of items were laid out on industrial racking in Exhibit A style.**

 **Major Terata gestured to the items. "All these were made with Undead labour by Watasawa Corporation. And all the items – are technically legal but very Dark-Side of the Farce."**

 **Calgari picked up what looked like a high-tech baseball bat, and found an activation switch. High-voltage sparks crackled in a three-inch arc at the far end. "Nice! You could taser a giant robot with this handy-dandy fashion accessory." He swished it like a sabre.**

 **"That's not a cattle-prod. It's more like an armoured dinosaur prod," Sergeant Gander said, his beak wrinkling in disgust. "Who would ever need one of those?"**

 **"Hey, what go around, comes around," Tlalocopa said brightly. "Be prepared in case they come back. Anyway, this is Japan. Giant reptiles are part of local ecosystem. Do vital Urban Renewal in Mega-Tokyo."**

 **"Well, we could use this, Sir," Calgari appealed to Colonel Fenix. "Suppose we grab some high exec of this Corporation and – put it to good use till he confesses to everything."**

 **"We are meant to be the good guys, Lieutenant," Hal said wearily. "Remember? We try and avoid doing that kind of thing."**

 **"Ah. But we're also a secret Unit. We need a cover identity. If we don't act like who we really are, the good guys – that'd help our disguise, wouldn't it Sir? Anyway - I promise to only use it on them till the battery runs out." Calgari smiled winningly.**

 **"It's mains powered." Sergeant Gander pointed to the thick electrical cable.**

 **"Then… I promise to only use it till the mains runs out." Calgari said hopefully. "Isn't that reasonable?"**

 **Next to him, Angelina Angelique was looking through the other items. "Coolest! A '** _ **fun with fluorine'**_ **kiddie's Chemistry set! I used to have one like this!" She enthused. "And this one's a doozy. Oh hey, you can make ozone di-fluoride! FOOOF itself!"**

 **"A happy coincidence, that stuff," Calgari said. "Its name is its chemical formula – and it goes off boom, or FOOOF! With – almost anything. Breaks the ice at parties. Most other things, too."**

 **Sergeant Gander looked at the box lid. "Impress your friends, suppress your enemies," he read out. "Watch in awe as you set fire to – sand! Water! Asbestos! Guaranteed hypergolic with 99% of all unwanted household items and inhabitants!" He winced, putting the box down very carefully and backing away slowly upwind.**

 **"Dip for non-Toons. Is only fair," Tlalocopa mused. "And what practical joke potential."**

 **Shirley's aura shuddered and pointed to another item, packed in an anonymous suitcase.**

 _ **A portable Home microbiology lab, 'little devil's kitchen' model, it says**_ **, the blue-glowing aura turned green in disgust.** _ **I like totally cannot believe this!**_

 **"Contains live Toonpox virus and the active memes for hot strains of both Qattara and Turfan Depression," Shirley read the box, her feathers turning paler than normal. "Includes '** _ **Gen-U-ine handy sized radiation source to mutate your own wacky custom strains**_ **'. Like, ewww. We have to shut these dudes down like mondo pronto, or some junk."**

 _ **If I ever saw junk, this is it**_ **, her aura confirmed.**

 **Calgari tutted reprovingly. "I'm disappointed, Shirley and Shirley. There's a tiny sticker on the back of each box says '** _ **strictly for peaceful Educational use only.**_ **' Surely you can't shut down Education? Think of the poor kiddies! The kiddies!"**

 **"Who won't be running around with glass tubes of weaponised mutant cooties or Satan's Kimchi," Shirley snapped. "Like, that's major sad, fer sure."**

 _ **Major sad - I Don't think,**_ **her Aura added sourly.**

 **"There's more," Colonel Fenix said grimly, hefting a hefty technical manual prominently bearing the company's dread logo. "I've heard of these. I've never seen a manual for one, though. The Corporation won a prestigious dark-side prize last year for the world's most gratuitously over-engineered toilet. They have an airport contract, even." He handed the thick tome to Major Terata. "You'll need to help me on this. I thought I knew Japanese – but these functions have titles like cryptic crossword clues."**

 **The two-headed Major put a pair of thinking caps on, whose cooling vanes were glowing red after a minute of hard study. "All functions interpreted by allusions to obscure Japanese folklore and early 1970's local TV shows," he said flatly. "Some of them I don't understand myself. No foreign-born Toon ever could."**

 **Shirley's aura had been hovering over his shoulder, channelling her incarnation as a 17** **th** **Century Shinto priestess to help translate.** _ **Way gross. Button #47. Who would ever want it to do THAT?**_

 **"They have an airport contract, so – foreigners, I expect," Angelina said lightly. "Foreigners. Who can guess the depths of their depravity? But the generous Corporation included at no extra charge a button just to suit them. Probably."**

 _ **And button 14, and 33, and what 7 does ... I wouldn't do THAT to a lima bean!**_ **Shirley's aura made ectoplasmic retching noises.**

 **"All legal, though," Major Terata said glumly. "Register as an officially sanctioned Evil Mega-Corporation, and much is possible."**

 **"Sounds about right," Angelina nodded thoughtfully. "That ten million volt dinosaur-prod had a clear warning sticker about where not to stick it. It's not Watasawa's fault if people misuse their fine products."**

 **"That's right! Like –if a builder's merchant innocently sold Shirley here a house brick – which she used to channel the spirit of Krazy Kat and brain a harmless passer-by with." Calgari said.**

 **"Direct hit, fifty yard tricky cross-wind shot, thirty point bonus!" Tlalocopa grinned.**

 **"Well, you wouldn't ban the sale of bricks just because of what Shirley does with one, would you?" Angelina's black avian eye glittered mischievously. "Villainesses have to do what they do. It's a Union rule."**

 **Shirley's aura returned from the corner of the warehouse, looking ill** _ **. I should be used to you uncool dudes by now, worse luck,**_ **she complained.** _ **Not get sicker all the time. What's wrong with me?**_

 **Major Terata smiled. "If you will permit? I have experience in spirit healing."**

 **Shirley's aura looked at that of the two-headed officer, seeing a clear and shining energy that even at a distance she could feel the glow of like warm sunshine.** _ **I'd be way grateful, dude-sama.**_

 **Major Terata's aura manifested a white coat, face mask and stethoscope, and stepped clear of his material body. He laid his glowing hand on the aura's brow, and concentrated. Then his eyes went wide for a second, before he stepped away smiling** _ **. I have good news. You are not seriously ill. It is only to be expected, in your condition. Congratulations!**_

 _ **Say what?**_ **Shirley's aura blinked. Suddenly her bill dropped open in shock and the colour seemed to drain from her, leaving her almost transparent. At her midriff a small dot of rather different colour was just visible.**

 **"Ooh. We can all see, when she does that," Angelina smiled. "Must be a local tradition. I've seen Anime girls who can go – transparent in places as a special effect."**

 **"Like, totally thanks for not** _ **telling**_ **me," the material Shirley grumbled to her aura. "It's the first I've heard of it, and you're a few months along already. So, who's the lucky entity?"**

 _ **But – I haven't! There's nobody!**_ **Her aura gasped.**

 **"No-body? Well, you don't have a body anyway," Angelina said. "You seem to be managing pretty well without." She winked.**

 **Colonel Fenix raised an eyebrow. "And yet she cannot lie either. A strange situation. But then, I believe she was born direct on the spirit plane? From what her mother tells me."**

 **"Fer sure," Shirley said. "Or we'd be material twins. And chromoplasm tests might tell us like who her hot date really was."**

 **Calgari sighed. "So, that's one aura packed off on Maternity leave, Sir? Leaving us one short, and our team's already understaffed. Good thing we brought along the personnel folders from base!" His feather-hand dipped into his Hammerspace pocket and smoothly produced three dossiers. "I have one here who's multi-skilled, he'd do great!"**

 **"The last Toons you were so keen on were all vampires," Colonel Fenix said dryly. "And this one is…?"**

 **The raven cocked his head aside, considering his reply. "Not a vampire… exactly," he said. "He's whatever you call a perfectly normal werewolf. Who then just happened to get bitten by a vampire."**

 **"Think of the potential, Sir!" Angelina urged. "He can do more than one speciality. Multi-skilled! Werewolves are famous for holding two jobs; they're always moonlighting."**

 **Hal sighed and shook his head. "We'll consider all that later. First, we have a mission. I believe Frank Sikosis and his band are in town already, under cover of a concert tour?" At Major Terata's twin nod, he went on. "So. We'll meet them, and start putting a plan together."**

 **"This is going to be SO cool!" Angelina Angelique enthused. "Let other Units mess around looking for evidence in rubbish bins and trying to hack the bad guys' computers. We take them on with an unplanned pregnant ghost, a heavy metal band and a tank with big spikes all over! That's style."**

 **Shirley rolled her eyes in disgust. "Listen, Miss Subtlety. This is a classic Evil Mega-Corporation we're up against. Like, comprende? They'll have all sorts of mondo sneaky security. They'll see us coming miles away, if we just totally charge in like that!"**

 **"You worry too much, Shirley. Sure sign of a guilty conscience," Calgari waved her objections aside with a midnight-black wing. "Just relax and enjoy the ride. The bad guys don't even know we're here!"**

* * *

 **In the centre of Neo-Tokyo, a tall black skyscraper reared sixty storeys to the stormy skies. In its basement a giant computer was doing something Shirley would have recognised at once, had it been done with sticks rather than randomised logic states – it was predicting the future by throwing the I Ching.**

 **Pattern 37.** _ **The enemy at the gate**_ **. (Who)**

 **Pattern 5** _ **. The distant travellers**_ **. (Who)**

 **Pattern 41.** _ **The musician**_ **. (What)**

 **Pattern 12.** _ **The iron drum.**_ **(What)**

 **Pattern 26.** _ **The two tribes unite**_ **. (Why)**

 **Pattern 72.** _ **The rescue**_ **. (Why)**

 **Pattern 1,653** _ **The weird bird with an umbrella growing out of his head**_ **(Why: comprising a very little-known I Ching sign, this.)**

 **PAL 9000, the Artificial Malevolence program who had gained control of Watasawa Gratuitously Heavy Engineering (Evil) Corporation, calculated rapidly. The pattern emerged.**

 _ **Look out for foreigners arriving, and linking up with a heavy metal band,**_ **was the message sent to its Security employees.** _ **They're trouble. Report any at once.**_

 **Half a minute later, an alert employee sent in footage from the main airport. A green American mallard was striding confidently through Customs, followed by a Kitsune, a Tanuki and a gargoyle carrying instruments suited to just such a band. They wore neck-braces of a pattern Anime headbangers favoured, to prevent their classic dance mode ('Headbangoru!') pulling their heads clean off. With the large heads and thin necks of many Anime humans, it was a definite hazard.**

 **PAL 9000 permitted itself two whole clock cycles of auto-congratulations, and signalled its Security teams once more.** _ **That's the threat! Identified! You know what to do.**_

 **End Chapter One**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

 **Salaryman Third-class Gogo Wackston Dodo, Corporate Asset #01204475 of Watasawa Gratuitously Heavy Engineering Mega-Corporation (Evil) Incorporated, polished up his company asset badge with pride. Other, lesser Corporations issued their workers with old-fashioned plastic so-called 'smartcards' that were static and stealable – his was an Ultra-GeniusCard bonded to his Toon aura and the Company's servers. Nobody but the issued Employee could wear it, and its ever-glowing screen proved that he was, indeed, still a valued (and hence living) asset. The same technology had been pioneered years ago for one of their early consumer products, the** _ **'I die you die'**_ **Tamagotchi, which had earned itself several pages worth of heated discussion on Wickedpedia, the official online compendium of Evil.**

 **At that instant he was strolling happily down the main street towards the market. He stopped at some roadworks, where excavations had left a big heap of pulled-up tarmac and concrete from the street piled up on the pavement. Looking around surreptitiously, he grabbed a handful and munched. No company surveillance drones appeared to be in sight; the last thing he wanted was for one of them to see him dining at a non-corporate site and get points on his Disloyalty card. "Ah! Japan has the world's finest Street food!" He happily declared, savouring the local cuisine. "Like my favourite ice cream flavour – Rocky road."**

 **"Konnichi-wa, Dodo-san." A voice came from behind him.**

 **Gogo turned, and recognised one of his neighbours – Mister Kasa-Obake, a one-eyed, mono-legged umbrella spirit. He bowed. "Hello, cousin!" He politely dipped and furled his own head umbrella – though he had never heard of the family connection till arriving in Japan, by their looks they were surely related. "How's life?"**

 **Mr. Kasa-Obake shrugged. "Looks like I'm about to get wet again, as usual." At his cue, distant thunder rumbled.**

 **Gogo nodded. "That's life! A little rain must fall." Umbrellas had the worst luck that way – usually they only came out when it rained. He waved farewell and returned to his corporate Salaryman Grade 3 Apartment, bowing as he passed Mrs. Yamoaroshi (a spiky haired, porcupine-like 'possessed, abandoned vegetable-grater spirit' *) in the corridor.**

 **"Ah." He soliloquised as he let himself into the spacious apartment, that easily had space not only to inhale and exhale, but to swing a cat in (provided the cat had no objections to hitting all four walls per rotation). "Home sweet home! If only dear #00079886 was here. There's poetry in motion for you." On the wall was a picture of his lovely wife lovingly squeezing out high-precision TiToonium extrusions with her well-manicured, diamond-lined pressure dies. To the ignorant or prejudiced, she just looked like a huge, high powered forging machine that took up half a factory floor.**

 **"Dear #00079886", he sighed, looking up at the picture. "Soon we'll be together again."**

 **(*)** · **Yes, really. An actual Japanese 'Yokai' spirit species!**

* * *

 **Outside a five-star hotel on the outskirts of Mega-Tokyo, a white stretch limousine pulled up. A uniformed chauffeur deferentially opened the door, and a green mallard stepped out, clad in a gleaming white Elvis type stage suit. Tripping over the cape, he landed beak-down in the rain-wet turf.**

 **Grabbing a double paw-full of muddy grass, Plucky Duck, super-star (as it said on the hastily printed poster stuck inside the limousine's back window) rose to stand in triumphant mode. "See how I seize this land with both hands!" he declaimed loudly, raising the captured crabgrass to the witnessing heavens.**

 **Behind him, four hotel gardeners did an irritable shimmer into samurai-styled power armour before fading back into deferential outfits and attitudes a fraction of a second later, power-katanas reverting to secateurs.**

 **Watching him from the hotel lobby was a short, stocky rooster that he recognised. "Hiyah, Pluckster!" Fowlmouth yelled. "It's da-gum great to have you on the tour!"**

 **"It surely is," Plucky said smoothly. "You must be so proud… but hey, that's OK. Very understandable."**

 **"Well, come on in and meet the band. Been awhile. We got your bagpipes delivered direct from the da-gum airport. The Toons in the hazmat suits are just out back delivering the fuel," Fowlmouth waved a feather-hand towards the hotel lobby. "Hey, the band are ready to roll."**

 **"Woo-hoo! The old gang's all here!" Plucky Duck enthused as he made his grand entrance to the hotel lobby, brushing aside media lobbyists. He carelessly tossed his grass-stained cape aside, where it flew across the room and almost but not quite landed faultlessly on the coat rack, missing by a mere twenty feet. "And here's the star you've been waiting for. Now you can start the show." He waved at Vinnie Deer, Dizzy Devil and Mitzi Avery.**

 **"Yaahh! Pluckster!" Dizzy Devil bounced up and down, waving at his old classmate. "We make Rock and roll. Fire up flugelhorn, make rocket roll too."**

 **"Hello, Plucky." Mitzi Avery got up from the sofa she had been relaxing on with her Tasmanian boyfriend. She was a tall, statuesque human of blonde good looks, cousin to another Warner Brothers supporting character whose nurse uniform needed considerable structural supporting. "Did you have a good flight?"**

 **"Sure, sure. First class all the way, what else? I even brought you our support band. Come on in, girls!" Plucky waved in Ore of Boron, the trio dressed in their gothic tutu stage outfits. They had followed in on their own carrying their instruments and baggage. "Ain't they sweet?"**

 **Mitzi ignored her boyfriend's tongue suddenly hanging out; that was just a reflex action. "Pleased to meet you." She paused, looking at the three in their stage outfits. "Did you walk through town dressed like that? We don't start rehearsals till tomorrow. Do you have any street clothes with you?" She wore a stylish but comfortable-looking padded jacket against the February chill outdoors, and a pleated blue knee-length skirt.**

 **Shinobu looked puzzled, tapping her black leather and lace. "We a metal band," she said. "It what we are. Always."**

 **"Except in bed or traditional bath-house scenes," Michiko chimed in, her eyes shining.**

 **"Hmm. That's an odd name for a metal group you chose," Mitzi raised an eyebrow. "Boron's not even a metal."**

 **Plucky looked around. "Fowlmouth, Dizzy, Vinnie Deer, Mitzi… aren't we missing someone?"**

 **"Heh. Furrball's a big hit round here with the girls. All that soulful electric violin stuff." Fowlmouth elbowed a mallard in the ribs, and winked knowingly. "He's… kinda busy."**

 **"Furrball gets lucky? Makes a change," Plucky marvelled.**

 **"Not so lucky…" Mitzi said, hearing a change in the background music heralding a chase scene. "You'll see."**

 **Just then a classic Pursuit Scene streaked through the lobby. A purple, yowling blur Plucky recognised as Furrball streaked past – with four very different feline femmes in hot pursuit. In the lead was a Toon kitty much like Furrball – almost neck and neck with her was a strange, lithe leopard-sphinx. Bringing up the rear were two bipeds – a standard feline furred girl in sailor-suit, and a mostly human Anime girl with cat ears, tail and wearing oversized 'cat-paw' mittens. A hungry-sounding cry of 'Nyahh!" echoed as she vanished out of sight.**

 **"They hunt in packs," Mitzi said cryptically.**

 **Plucky nodded, scratching his head-feathers. "One of them looked kinda human. Except in places."**

 **"She a Kemonomimi," Shinobu said. "Standard in Japan. Come in all animal shapes."**

 **"Well, cats, dogs and bunnies are most of them I've seen," Mitzi mused. "I don't suppose many girls go for warthogs, star-nosed moles or horned toads."**

 **"Hey! I know one goes for Tasmanian Devils," Fowlmouth winked lewdly at her. "Goes for dem and gets 'em, too." He sighed. "Chee. Dat Furrball's some lucky guy."**

 **Mitzi sniffed, her eyes wandering to where the chase scene had exited. "That bunch? They'd eat you for a snack."**

 **"Sure, but what a way to go," Fowlmouth sighed.**

 **"Fowlmouth make great Eastern fried chicken, yaah!" Dizzy agreed, drooling. "With wasabi!"**

 **Mitzi smiled, stretching her long, lean figure. "Well. Plucky – I think we've got everything you wanted sent over." She gestured towards a large 'care package' labelled with his name on it. Some show-business Toons insisted on their favourite brand of breakfast cereal or Toon dynamite delivered wherever in the world they were working; Plucky had his own shopping-list of essentials when on tour.**

 **The mallard nodded happily as he sorted through the boxes. He grinned at the sight of the February issues of '** _ **Survival sporks and fighting foons of the world's elite forces'**_ **, and '** _ **Re-entry vehicles in heat'**_ **and put them aside for later as he saw what else was there. "They arranged to forward the latest issue to me! That's great!" He waved the copy of '** _ **True Conspiracy Fact (not Theory!) Stories'**_ **that had been awaiting him. "Whoo-hoo! Last month's issue was a real frightener." He looked around cautiously. "Do you know the American Government secretly puts special chemicals in modern tin-foil that stops it working properly for mind-protection hats? I'm only buying Japanese aluminium foil this trip."**

 **"Do tell," Mitzi Avery said, straight-faced. She had read that issue and was unimpressed. The front cover story screamed out '** _ **Now it can be told!**_ _ **Did Columbus and the Spanish Government fake the whole 'Americas Landing' Project? Have all so-called 'Americans' been living in an undocumented province of India all this time? Why were no photographs of the so-called landing ever released? See Pages 56-197 for blistering expose! Disaffected former junior archive clerk in the genuine Spanish Government tells all!**_ **' "I wouldn't trust that rag further than I could throw Columbus. Including his ship."**

 **"Well, 'miss Mitzi know-it-all' – so just who did they meet as soon as they found the so-called Americas? Red 'Indians'. Just a bit of a giveaway?" Plucky raised an eyebrow. "And how about that city they found when they went further West – 'INDIANapolis' or the entire state, INDIANa? Hey? It all makes sense." He nodded meaningfully. "And they said all these 'Conspiracies' were just theories. 'They' would, wouldn't they? Who benefits if people believe the official story? Officials, that's who."**

 **"This is the mallard who a couple of years ago tried to join the Secret Overlords as a trainee 'puppet-master' – and I don't mean puppets as in street theatre," Mitzi said flatly, turning to Dizzy and the band. "Shirley told me." She paused, a quizzical expression on her face. "She didn't say how you knew where to send the application form."**

 **"I just addressed it to The Secret Overlords, New World Order, and threw it in the mailbox," Plucky protested. "They know where they are. I never heard back, though. Not even returned with 'address unknown' – which proves they must have got it. So there."**

 **Mitzi looked the mallard up and down. A thought struck her. "Did you put your return address on the envelope?"**

 **Plucky snorted. "Please. Just who do you think you're talking about here? They know exactly where I am. They know these things."**

 **"Ah-hum." Mitzi looked at the magazine critically. "So, are you going for their '** _ **Fabulous one-time lifetime offer,'**_ **the '** _ **beat the IRS once and for all'**_ **scam they're pushing? Only available for the first thousand to respond and publicly admit Columbus faked the whole 'Americas landings' thing."**

 **"Well? Who'd be crazy enough to miss out? It's such a deal – it's a real steal. If you send your tax money to them instead of the IRS for a year, they put you on Indian base level tax for life – much cheaper than the American rate," Plucky whispered conspiratorially, and tapped the advertisement on the back page. "Look where they're based! Absolute proof! A numbered PO box in Bollywood! It all makes sense."**

 **Mitzi sighed. "And who needs proof? I keep forgetting. You believe in** _ **'lack of evidence proves it got suppressed**_ **.' I'll stick to unfashionable facts."**

 **"Mitzi smartest," Dizzy Devil proudly proclaimed. "Play keyboard, do all business manager stuff too. Always get band good deal, yah!"**

 **Mitzi smiled, looking at her boyfriend lovingly. In her handbag was a set of severe-looking round wire-framed spectacles. There was actually nothing wrong with her eyesight, but when combined with a corporate styled skirt-suit the plain glass lenses gave her a (+4) on all business-related skill rolls. "Well then, everyone's here. Tomorrow we start work. We still have this evening to all get acquainted."**

 **"Party! Parrrrty!" Dizzy yelled, jumping up and down. "Rock and roll!"**

 **Plucky turned to Ore of Boron, and winked at the three. "Stick with me, girls," he proclaimed "this band is going places!"**

 **Half an hour later in the hotel bar, a certain green mallard was telling an apparently enthralled kitsune, tanuki and gargoyle a version of his life story that the archives of Acme Looniversity would not have quite agreed with.**

 **"… And amazingly enough, back in our original class film days, we got away with doing a beer-based show! I got away with it even back then!" He enthused.**

 **"Yaa. With Buster and Hamton, Buster starred." Dizzy paused from his wasabi-eating contest with a team of fire-eating sumo wrestlers. "'One Beer', Dizzy remember."**

 **Plucky sniffed. "That rabbit? The star? Sure, in his dreams. And my old sidekick Hamton… a worthy guy. But limited, you know? He just couldn't take a rock 'n' roll lifestyle, no way." He paused. "Old Hammy was the last guy I ever knew who played postal chess. Had to quit it in the end."**

 **Shinobu put her hand up. "Because all went onto internet?" She queried.**

 **"Heck, no. It was all way too exciting for him." Plucky looked around the bar. "I don't recognise any beer I've ever seen a commercial for."**

 **Mitzi Avery smiled sweetly. "Why not try the local drink? Rice Sake?"**

 **"It very strong," Naoko warned.**

 **Plucky tossed his head back in disdain. "Ha! You're looking at a mallard who's faced direwolves and sabre-toothed tigers with only a spear in my hand. They came for lunch – me – and they stayed. In the wardrobe, as fur coats. Foreign drinks hold no terror for this duck."**

 **"If you say so." Mitzi nodded and spoke a few words to the barman, a predictably panda bit-part character, who passed Plucky a large frosted bottle swathed in Hazard symbols of drunken Toons falling under steamrollers, off cliff edges and pressing the wrong button at military bases.**

 **"She speaks Japanese," Shinobu whispered to her fellow band members. "With hardly an accent!"**

 **Plucky raised the bottle, and drank deep.**

" **They no do Dizzy's favourite drink here," the Tasmanian Devil grumbled. "Mix beer and Jaeger-bombs."**

 **"Why not, pray tell?" Plucky looked at the well-stocked bar, as the pupils in his eyes did an interesting rapid 'squash and stretch'. "Looks like they have everything else."**

 **Mitzi shook her head. "The local beer is pressurised with hydrogen, not carbon dioxide. Which helps drunken burping salarymen set fire to themselves in gross drinking games."**

 **"And so?" Plucky demanded, thumping the empty bottle on the counter and waving for another. "What's wrong with that?"**

 **Mitzi sighed. "Think of the mixes you'd get. Hydrogen beer and Jaeger-bombs. The beer-Jaeger would be OK but the Japanese have a real down about hydrogen-bombs."**

 **Dizzy Devil grinned. "Tradition in Japan. Like do Karaoke." He pointed at the brightly-flashing machine in the corner. "Dizzy love karaoke!"**

 **"I can sing any Western track," Plucky boasted, grinning to Ore of Boron. "It's a big thing where I come from. I learned them all perfectly from one of the classic lonesome cowboys, way out in the desert."**

 **"Are there many such, Plucky-san?" Michiko asked.**

 **"Hordes. Regiments. Everywhere you go there's big teams of lone cowboys." Plucky waved a feather-hand dismissively, draining the second bottle and waving for more. "Go around in swarms."**

" **I don't know most of the J-Pop and K-pop songs on here, so Western it is." Mitzi pressed a random selection on the Western section of the Karaoke machine. The instrumental for the classic track 'Mule Train' rang out unmistakeably. "Do you know this one?"**

" **Sure I know it! You can't pull a trick question like that and switch styles on ol' Plucky Duck. I don't just do cowboy tunes, you know. I learned this from Fifi back at Acme Loo. She knew all the French folksongs." Plucky snorted.**

 **"French?" Naoko wondered. "Not Wild West?"**

 **"Well, obviously. It's in the title, even. Their favourite pack and riding shellfish are mussels, or 'moules' in the local lingo, whatever that is," Plucky expounded expansively. "Yee-haw! There'd be whole convoys of them ornery pack-molluscs, carrying their loads up from the coast to the fish-markets and restaurants of Paris. With grizzled old Mule-skinners… no, that's got to be 'moule-shellers'." He grabbed the Karaoke microphone and sang:**

 _ **"Moule train! Flippity-floppin' through the saline rain…"**_

 **"Saline?" Mitzi queried. "Since when does it rain salt water?"**

 **"Where do you think all those salt lakes in the cowboy films come from? You don't get them in the ACME catalogue, you know." Plucky snapped, annoyed. "Besides - mussels are sea creatures, right? Can't have them getting soaked in fresh water when it rains. Like putting salt on a slug, that'd be. Plain cruelty."**

 **Naoko put her hand up as if she was back in class. "And what happens when they get to Paris seafood restaurant, Plucky-san?"**

 **The masterful mallard paused, a look of confusion briefly passing over his face. "Fifi never said. I sort of assumed they all found jobs as waiters or something." He looked round, tapping the microphone. "Pray, may the star of this show proceed?" He raised the third litre of Sake and almost inhaled it.**

 **Mitzi nodded resignedly. "This ought to be… interesting." Suddenly she smiled wickedly as an idea struck her, and from her bag pulled out a video camera which she quickly set up on a mini tripod facing the stage.**

 **Plucky stepped back up to centre stage, his favourite position in life. "Where was I, before I was so rudely interrupted? Oh yeah." From his Hammerspace pocket he pulled out a big round tin tea-tray, which he noisily bashed over his knee and head in rough accompaniment to the song:**

 **"** _ **Moule train! Hyahhhh!**_

 _ **Flippity-flopping through the saline rain**_

 _ **Soon they're going to reach the shop,**_

 _ **Flippity-flop, flippity-flippity-flippity flopping along.**_

 _ **There's a packet oozing madness, from a book beyond Hell's borders**_

 _ **Shiny boots for someone high up in the New World Order**_

 _ **Some psychedelic pills, for the hippies in the hills**_

 _ **Git along, moules, git along!**_

 _ **There's a legacy for Yuppies, on New Age junk to squander**_

 _ **A notebook for a theorist who left his home to ponder**_

 _ **Plans for Mysteron attacks, for the traitor Captain Black ***_

 _ **Git along, moules, git along!**_

 _ **There's some latex and some leather gear, for fetishists up yonder**_

 _ **An absence note for Teacher, to make the heart grow fonder**_

 _ **Tinfoil covers, head to toe, shield the mind from UFO's**_

 _ **Git along, moules, git along!**_

 _ **Moule train, hy'ahhh! Flippity-flopping up the mighty Seine**_

 _ **Soon they'll all be for the pot, flippity-flop,**_

 _ **Flippity-flippity-flippity flopping along**_

 _ **Moule train! Yee-haaa!"**_

 _ **(***_ **Although puppets and Toons rarely socialised, the full year Acme Looniversity degree certainly included Gerry Andersson classics such as 'Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.' Although Plucky needed to down large quantities of sake to think of it.)**

 **With a final crashing blow to the tin tray he bowed, and put down the microphone. He swayed noticeably.**

 **"Say... do you think someone spiked that sake? Feels definitely… hic! Inn – terresting..." With that Plucky keeled over, falling flat on his back, webbed toes pointing at the ceiling as his feet quivered like tuning forks. The fallen tin tray rang in accompaniment like a departing bell as it spun wobbling for a second on stage next to him before subsiding.**

 **There was a brief silence. Shinobu nodded significantly. "Old saying, about sake. The mallard drinks the first bowl. The second bowl drinks the first. The third drinks the mallard."**

 **Mitzi smiled. "Back at Acme Acres our local Chinese restaurant has a dish called 'drunken chicken' on the menu." Her eyes gleamed with mischief. "Someone should change that to 'drunken duck' and have him wake up on a plate on a bed of rice. It'd serve him right to get served up with orange sauce. He's pretty marinaded already."**

 **"Yahh! Good joke!" Dizzy enthused.**

 **Mitzi sighed. "Nice idea. In practice – a terrible waste of good rice. And oranges."**

 **"We take him safe to hotel room!" Naoko flexed her rock-solid muscles. "Carry him up, no problem!"**

 **Mitzi's eyes narrowed. "To his room. Not yours."**

 **A gargoyle girl suddenly looked so innocent that the sound of local credibility straining was clearly audible. "Oh yes, Mitzi-Sama. Sure, we take him to his room."**

 **"And then all three of you come straight back here," Mitzi said firmly, seeing three sets of ears droop. Evidently it was not only felines around here that hunted in packs.**

* * *

" **That Miss Avery, she a spoilsport." Ten minutes later a slumbering duck had been carefully laid out on his bed, the door locked and the spare key reluctantly passed to Mitzi. Ore of Boron were having a band meeting in Naoko's room.**

 **"Yes. What happens on tour, stays on tour," Shinobu agreed, her long banded tail twitching. "For handsome rock star – traditional!"**

 **"Hai!" The other two chorused.**

 **Michiko sighed. "Three of us. One duck. We share?"**

 **Shinobu grinned. "One duck. But he also have shape as Captain W with authentic wombat powers. Marsupial biology. Marsupial males have – extra possibilities." She held up two fingers and wiggled them suggestively, suggesting two of something not usually in pairs. "Use amazing wombat-like abilities on us."**

 **"So." Naoko nodded thoughtfully as she recalled various Japanese cartoons that showed more accurate biology than ever appeared on the Disney Channel. "That work – very well. For two of us. But when?"**

 **Michiko gave a sharp-toothed vixen grin as she swished her tails; in the privacy of their room it was obvious there were seven of them – in years to come she aspired to the full set of nine. "Trust a kitsune!" She paused. "Really, usually… best not to do that. But trust me on this – it will be soon!"**

 **There was a pause. Naoko looked puzzled. "Was thinking. We're speaking our native Japanese to each other. Why we still have accents and bad grammar, like we speaking English or American?"**

 **Shinobu shrugged. "It just one of those things."**

 **"So." The other two nodded thoughtfully, and started to lay their plans.**

* * *

 **Morning dawned, and the breakfast room at the hotel gradually filled. Mitzi Avery had been down there an hour, busily working on her laptop when a bleary-eyed mallard staggered in croaking for coffee like a caffeine-starved frog.**

 **"Look what the cat dragged in," Mitzi's eyes twinkled. "Sleep well?" She wore her severe grey business skirt-suit, and looked at the mallard over the top of her glasses. "Oh. You don't look so well. Maybe this duck needs a quack doctor?"**

 **"Jet lag. It's a killer." Plucky slumped at the table, after ordering a half-gallon of undiluted extra-strength espresso.**

 **"Mmm. Especially when you measure it in bottles, not time zones," Mitzi said, her tone mercilessly bright and cheerful. "Quite a show you put on last night. I'd heard karaoke is listed as a martial art around here – now I know why."**

 **Plucky winced, upending the coffee pot and draining it in a gushing stream down his gullet. "Oh. I remember some of that. I committed Karaoke. I think." A pained expression washed over his bill. "Still. Only the band heard it, right?"**

 **"Ooooooh… funny you should say that. You should have told us, 'no publicity' last night, if you were so worried about things getting out," Mitzi said sweetly. She turned her laptop round to face him, revealing a breakfast news show reporting recognisable footage playing on giant public screens in cities across the Orient. "And publicity like this for our tour, you just can't buy. I uploaded it to ToonTube last night. Congratulations, Plucky, 'Moule Train's' gone viral!"**

 **There was a moan and a crash, as Plucky collapsed beak-first on the table, scattering crockery.**

 **Mitzi signalled to a waiter. "Sorry about this," she indicated the scene. "Could you clear away this awful mess?" She could not resist adding "And the crockery, too."**

* * *

 **It was a rather more harmonious and less hung-over breakfast on the far side of town, where Babs and Buster sat cross-legged on bamboo mats, with Merumo and her mother serving breakfast rice. This differed from their daily luncheon rice and supper rice only by the timing.**

 **"I wish Father was still here," Merumo sighed. "He would love to have met you."**

 **"Did you… lose him?" Buster asked, his ears down. Japan was generally a safe place for most things, but weekly fatalities on game shows ran in the hundreds.**

 **Mrs Matsutake suddenly broke into a grin. "Oh, no. We know just where he is. Last year, in the village there opened an '** _ **all you can eat, 24 hour sushi buffet'**_ **." She paused, shaking her head. "He's still there. He still hasn't eaten all he** _ **can."**_

 **"We'll wave if we go past," Babs promised.**

 **"Sounds like our pal Calamity, and his diet problems – just the other way around," Buster said. "He'd send off for ACME diet books with titles like '** _ **Do you have trouble controlling what you eat?**_ **'"**

 **"If he could have controlled those Road Runners, he might have eaten them," Babs added. "That was his diet trouble."**

 **Merumo nodded. "In my class were two identical Tiger girls. They had a gag of swapping names – and claiming it was their sister who had been served at meals, not them. So they got extra servings. And again. And again."**

 **"We can beat that," Babs said. "Even identical twins are old-hat these days. We've seen the ACME Loo first-year class of fifteen years in the future. There's a girl in class with her identical clone sitting next to her, they're both called Kate."**

 **Merumo frowned. "Clones? Same name? How do you tell them apart?"**

 **Buster grinned. "It's a problem, all right. They're both Kate – but one's a 'dupli-kate'."**

 **"Just to make things ironic, there was a computer glitch – amazingly, in the future they still happen – and the hospital lost track of who's who," Babs added. "Who is the original? Nobody knows."**

 **"Arr, begorrah" Buster spin-changed into a stage Irish costume complete with lucky shamrock and an even luckier shillelagh (bonus (+1 to hit,) (+3 to damage vs blunt comedic prop weapons)) "To be sure, an' I thought t'was yerself, but now I see 'tis yer sister!"**

 **Merumo was examining his costume. She looked at the green clover-like leaf in his buttonhole. "Is that a shamrock?" she queried.**

 **"To be sure. 'Tis too heavy, to be wearin' of a real rock there," Buster quipped quaintly.**

 **Merumo winced. "Last time I heard pun that bad, was strange green spirit-bird, a 'Yokai' I saw on Main Street last week."**

 **"Hmm…" Babs tapped her chisel-teeth thoughtfully. "I know just who that sounds like. Despite us having no idea which city he even lives in. Or even which island in Japan." She paused. "Funny, how that works out."**

 **"Yes, I wonder how Gogo Dodo's doing. Our old Paraphiliac pal," Buster mused, spin-changing back and losing the accent along with the shamrock.**

 **"Paraphiliac?" Babs queried. "You mean – he likes parachutes? Well, he does have that sort of parachute-umbrella thing on his head."**

 **"No. He likes people that, umm, most folks don't see as people," Buster said. "Remember our first-year prom? He dated that fire hydrant."**

 **"Oh, yes. Deirdre, he called her," Babs said thoughtfully. "And later on, he dated that industrial rock crusher, 'Roxanne'." She shook her head, wincing slightly. "If that's his idea of a 'lady' – rough lady! I was afraid that 'girl' would just chew him up and spit him out."**

 **"Mitzi and her friend Taffy were both sweet on him," Buster recalled. "I remember Taffy at a fancy-dress party dressed up for him as a spin-dryer. Close, but no dodo date. He prefers less… biology."**

 **"My, my. And Taffy's a real looker. No wonder dodos are nearly extinct," Babs shook her head.**

 **"I never met Gogo," Merumo said. "He in Wacky-land all time I was in Acme Acres."**

 **"Wacky-land," Babs sighed nostalgically. "What a place! The scenery! Cool shadows pouring out of a black sun in a blazing white-hot sky. Endless non-towering sprawls of entirely flat mountains. The picturesque clans of enormous dwarves sheltering there from hot hailstorms and custard rain. Gogo rained, or reigned there too. Reigned as the Dodo supreme, out there where it rains Chicken Supreme."**

 **"That's what he did, all right. Governor of the uncontrollable," Buster said. "Gave it all up to work for a pittance, at a company that officially hates its staff. Corporately and personally, too. Yes, you'd have to be insane to do that."**

 **"That's Gogo for you," Babs nodded meaningfully. "From where the 'lunatic fringe' isn't just a hairstyle."**

 **Merumo sighed. "It is hard being from a famous culture. People misunderstand what they see on the films. Expect you to always be just like that."**

 **"That's right!" Buster agreed. "Like our friend Marcia Martian – when word got out she was a real flying-saucer type alien, folks queued up, wanting to get abducted and all sorts of weird things done to them 'just like on TV'. Though she kept explaining real Martians weren't interested in doing that sort of scientific experiment on Earth Toons."**

 **"She couldn't go within a mile of Acme Trailer Park (*) without attracting a hopeful crowd," Babs said meaningfully. "Some of them brought along their own… equipment. Lubricant, even."**

 **(*** **Editor's note: by strict Studio command, Babs' and Buster's original class films carefully avoided all reference to Acme Acres' notorious trailer park. Suffice it to say; when Fifi chose to live in a wrecked car on a scrap heap and Furrball in a cardboard box in an alleyway, they both knew there were far worse places to be. Given the choice between daily life there and being abducted and dragged off to the unknown to be used for fiendish Alien experimentation… most residents kept a hopeful eye on the skies.)**

 **Merumo blinked. "She had to disappoint them all?"**

 **Babs cast a sly grin at her husband. "Blue-boy here fixed it. He persuaded them Marcia had really done all the hideous junk they expected her to – and suppressed the memories. Beyond the reach of hypnosis, even live on a cable channel. So everyone went away happy. Some were even limping."**

 **Buster bowed modestly. "It's a space-alien kinda thing to do," he said. "Or so they say."**

 **Breakfast over, Merumo departed for work, and Babs decided on a morning combining tourism and shopping. The Rising Sun was riding high in the East, as per reference material, as she and Buster strolled into the local town centre, little Blitz poking his adorable ears and whiskers out of the cub-carrier on Buster's back.**

 **"Hmm," Babs looked around the street scene; classical wood and paper framed houses predominated, with temples and a castle on the hill above town. "Isn't this Mega-Tokyo? Where's all the towering skyscrapers and flashy advertising we saw on the way in yesterday?"**

 **"Heh. About twenty miles that-a-way," Buster pointed down the street. "Their Ludicrously Rapid Transit System – really is just that. This is one of the old towns that got swallowed whole by the suburbs."**

 **"An actual logical reason!" Babs marvelled. "Toto, I don't think we're in Acme Acres any more..."**

 **"And there's a well-researched temple to prove it," Buster pointed at the sacred 'Torri' gateway of a Shinto shrine, where passing Toons stopped to bow and pay their respects. "When in Rome..."**

 **"Eat pasta and drive like a maniac?" Babs asked brightly. Her ears fell. "Buster, we can't pay our respects here! The Committee for Un-American Activities would have our tails – and our actor's dramatic licenses - when we got home!"**

 **"What about that one?" Buster pointed across the street.**

 **"Oh. No problem there." The pair crossed the street paw-in-paw and bowed low at the doorway to the local office of Tokyo Movie Shinsa, the production company who had worked on the best of their old class films.**

 **They carried on down the street, and stopped to let a chattering pair of possessed, fiendishly grinning straw sandals bounce past them, followed by a turban-snail who suddenly metamorphosed into a human woman and waved for a taxi. Babs nodded thoughtfully. "Reminds me of Wacky-land," she said. "Definitely high ambient weirdness field."**

 **"But with shops," Buster pointed across the street.**

 **"Good plan, Blue-boy!" Babs grabbed his hand and pulled him towards a beckoning shoe-shop. Buster took a metaphorical deep breath; with Babs in a shopping mood, it could be a long time before they came up for air.**

 **Three hours later, they re-emerged into daylight. Now Babs wore the cub-carrier, while Buster groaned under the weight of a two cubic metre shopping pack. Comedic dents in the asphalt street marked his footprints.**

 **"Ah. Time for refreshment. A low-calorie bubble-tea, why not? Better just drink the bubbles. I have to watch my film-star figure," Babs declared. "So the audience keep wanting to."**

 **"You got rave reviews when we filmed '** _ **Ain't she swell?'**_ **last year," Buster reminded her. "And we filmed till three weeks before Blitz arrived."**

 **"True. But I don't want to get type-cast," Babs said. She paused, her eyes going distant. "Well, maybe a little sequel or two wouldn't hurt..."**

 **Just then, Buster's ears went right up. He did a double-take. "Guess who I can see. Walking straight towards us down Main Street at High Noon." In the distance a temple bell tolled.**

 **"Gary Cooper?" Babs asked hopefully, turning to look. "Oh. Oh my. What's the chances of us bumping into Gogo Dodo totally at random the first morning we're here?"**

 **"Do the Toon maths, Babsy," Buster grinned. "Billion-to-one odds attract billion-to-one solutions. It just had to happen."**

 **"Especially after I mentioned Wacky-land." Babs waved vigorously. "Hidy, Gogo!" She called out. "Long time no see!"**

 **Gogo did an extreme Wild Take, his body parts all separating, flying apart then reassembling. "Whoop whoop! Stand by to repel boarders! Gardeners all weed borders!" He non-sequitured. Then he blinked. "Well, if it isn't my classy old classmates? How did you get here?"**

 **"Maybe we tunnelled straight down… you come out in China, so they say." Babs looked up artlessly. To be fair, it was a very artistic interpretation of an artless look.**

 **"If 'They' don't have a globe handy…" Buster said.**

 **"Then left turn and here we are!" Babs deadpanned. She turned to Buster. "Say – just how do you repel boarders?"**

 **"Put up the room rental and never change the bed-sheets," Buster replied, straight-faced.**

 **From somewhere in an alleyway there was a moan and a thud as a very old joke keeled over and died.**

 **"So, Gogo… how's life outside the Wacky-world?" Babs asked brightly.**

 **"Wacky-land." Gogo looked the bunnies up and down. "That was my old life. These days I'm Corporate Asset #01204475 of the Watasawa Corporation."**

 **Babs blinked. "So … if you're Corporate Asset #01204475, have you met Corporate Asset #01204474?"**

 **Gogo gave a heartfelt sigh. "Oh, yes. She's an Incriminating Document shredding machine in the next office. We joined the company on the same day. I was sweet on her for a few weeks, before I met my lovely wife."**

 **"And how about Corporate Asset #01204473?" Buster asked, an eyebrow raised.**

 **"An electrical switchbox in the next building." Gogo replied promptly. "Sure, we've met."**

 **"Did you… ever… date?" Babs asked cautiously.**

 **The dodo took an affronted step back. "Please! That's a guy. You can tell by the code number. Do you think I'm weird or something?"**

 **"I refuse to answer that on grounds I could insinuate myself," Babs deadpanned.**

 **"Anyway, you have to meet my lovely wife and son," Gogo gushed, briefly changing into a fire hydrant. "He takes after both of us."**

 **"How… interesting," Babs said diplomatically, fanning her adorable nose with a passport to match.**

 **Buster grinned. "Should be quite some family tree. A bit more – branching than Banjo Possum's. But then, he's from the Deep South. Not the Deep Strangeness." Gogo Dodo's father had appeared on the 1930's Loony Toons, when Porky Pig had encountered him. His mother, a first-generation photocopier, had featured as a bit-part actress in many 1960's office movies though never getting the film title credits she deserved.**

 **"Come up and see my family photos!" Gogo urged. "I live just round the corner."**

 **"It figures," Buster allowed. "Everything from Wacky-Land is round the bend."**

 **They followed him five minutes to a neat but cramped tenement with something like traditional paper panelled walls. Buster tapped one cautiously. He had heard of the exquisite Japanese artistry of strong hand-crafted paper that could endure a century. This was evidently recycled newsprint.**

 **"Well, come on in! I'd offer you tea and sake, but I don't have anything like that," Gogo waved them in happily. They found seats on the floor, after a search.**

 **Babs frowned. She had put her gloves and ear-muffs on a small table by the door – which had mysteriously vanished, leaving them lying on the floor. She turned to her husband. "Buster," she whispered "wasn't there a table there when we came in?"**

 **Buster turned and nodded. "There was. Not always, it seems." Then he did a fast double-take. "It's back again." Sure enough, it was now exactly where it had been, Babs' outerwear piled neatly on it.**

 **Gogo evidently heard them. "It's the one piece I brought here from Wacky-land," he said with dignity. "Never heard of an 'occasional table'?"**

 **"Heh. Occasionally," Babs said. She accepted the photo album Gogo proudly offered, and leafed through it. She blinked, turning the album round trying to check if the complex of pipes, valves and wiring made more sense that way. "She's certainly a very interesting… choice of bride."**

 **"I'm a lucky guy, I know," Gogo gave a heartfelt sigh. "Do you want to talk to her?"**

 **The rabbits exchanged mystified glances. "Can we?" Buster asked, one ear half-dipped in confusion.**

 **"Sure! She's connected. Orders her own spare parts and maintenance, even! And she's a high-maintenance lady." Gogo pulled out of a drawer an ancient computer terminal, which he plugged into the old telephone line.**

 _ **High-tech. I don't think**_ **, Busters ears semaphored in rabbit code.**

 _ **Hush, you. Can't you see he hasn't got two yen to rub together**_ **? Babs' ears retorted, a little annoyed.**

 _ **Most folk would have a 'yen' to get away and find a better gig than this,**_ **Buster reflected.**

 **"Helloooo, light of my life!" Gogo crooned as he typed the same words in. "How are you today? I've got some old friends in to visit. Babs and Buster!" He turned the screen to face them. "Wave!"**

 _ **That old thing doesn't even Have a camera,**_ **Buster signalled, as he and Babs waved cheerfully. But then lines of white text began to appear on the monochrome green screen:**

Far-travelled

The lovers trod the burrow road

From Acme

 **Buster blinked. "A numerically controlled fabrication machine that writes haiku?"**

 **"She's very economical. Haiku's the most economical style there is!" Gogo enthused.**

 **The old green screen began to scroll again as Babs peered into its depths.**

Bunnies

Three and more now

Winter arriving

 **Babs' pink and white form blushed prettily. "You know?" she addressed the screen. "I haven't even… tested, let alone told my husband!"**

 **Buster's hand found hers and squeezed it gently in reassurance.**

 **"She's a clever lady, my dear #00079886", Gogo affirmed.**

 **Babs smiled, cracked her knuckles and limbered up her typing fingers. "Why don't you guys go out and look at a Zen garden or something for an hour or so," she suggested. "#00079886 and me have got a serious lot of girl-talk to do!"**

* * *

 **Back in the Crowninshield mansion in the snowy woods around Mount Acme, it was a quiet morning. Rhubella had borrowed Mary Melody's Most_Terrain Vehicle, driven through the snows from town and dropped in for Foulplay coffee and a talk with her old friend.**

 **"So, how's Plucky doing out on tour?" Rhubella asked, sipping her (not just skinny but borderline anorexic) latte. Margot's house was the only place she got to drink such things these days. "Did he get to Japan OK?"**

 **"Yes – Mitzi Avery phoned just before you arrived; the band's having an early breakfast while the sun rises in the Land of the Rising Sun" Margot said. "My dear husband is conducting himself in his usual inimitable style."**

 **"That bad, eh?" Rhubella asked. Suddenly she blinked. "Hold it. It's breakfast time here. In Japan it must be about midnight. We can't both be watching the sunrise."**

 **Margot laughed. She pulled out a phone the sight of which made Rhubella's whiskers stand on end in surprise. "When you've got one of these, plebeian things like time zones don't matter anymore," she said firmly. "I can phone when I want, not when the planet gets round to it." The very exclusive model had at its heart a technology based on forbidden Unobtanium alloys, giving it abilities not achievable otherwise.**

 **"Well, you run the Phobos banking connection with your long-lost cousin Mary," Rhubella allowed. Mary Melody had been curious about her ancestry, and detailed chromoplasm analysis had revealed she and Margot Mallard did in fact share a male human ancestor some four generations back, unlikely as that seemed on their model sheets. "You can afford it."**

 **"Yes." Margot smiled. "And I'm keeping track of my husband. He's in the Anime Japan, where of course their tropes are different. He's stumbled into the '** _ **oblivious male with passionate admirers'**_ **one, which is about right."**

 **"As long as he stays on that one, I suppose." Rhubella said. "And Mitzi's watching him. Trust, but verify."**

 **Margot sipped her Foulplay morbidly obese mocha contemplatively as she savoured the unethically sourced, environmentally unsustainable brew. "You remember the dossier on that Acme Loo class? The feline Furrball, minor character, he's the one picked up the '** _ **imminent seduction threat'**_ **trope, like it or not. Four very compatible feline girls are after him, and may get him. Mitzi keeps me updated."**

 **"Do tell," Rhubella asked. Her Perfecto-trained nose and appetite for intrigue was as sharp as ever.**

" **According to Mitzi – there's a twist in the tale of that broken-tailed cat. Alley-cat he may be, he's a deeply romantic soul. He might woo the delicate heart of a fair feline femme – but an on-tour harem of extremely willing groupies, thrills him not at all." Margot said. "I'm told it's Meme #56 in the Anime edition of the book – '** _ **male surrounded by eager females can't take advantage of his good luck. As usual.'"**_

 **"She's a sharp operator, Mitzi Avery," Rhubella nodded. "Another who's turned out a lot less two-dimensional than folk would think. Male Toons go cross-eyed at that figure and don't expect there's a spectacular brain to match. Until it's too late."**

 **"Yes. Always worth watching, to see stealth characters suddenly take stage centre," Margot agreed. "I know her friends Taffy and Jessie; they're famous for dancing on the band's videos, but they have some major talents. In Plucky's old class films they only got tiny bit-parts, and they're not the only ones like that with so much more to them." She cast a knowing glance at the open doorway, where Gladys and Gracie were busily cleaning, with contented expressions on their bills. "Life's full of little surprises."**

 **"You certainly are," Rhubella deadpanned, her gaze briefly locking on the stork feather on its platinum chain nestled in Margot's cleavage, then to the pair of eggs in the warm nest in the corner. "So, looks like the stork's getting to know this address pretty well."**

 **Margot cast herself back on the sofa, shielding her eyes as if from some tragic melodramatic fate. "Oh! The tragic irony of my life! And what a Christmas homecoming it was for my poor Plucky! My dear husband was eagerly speeding through the snows from far away to reach my side – too late, forever too late! Arriving only in time to see a stork delivering me its news. Pregnant by my own maids! Oh, the shame!"**

 **"Yes. That." Rhubella nodded, clearly unimpressed. "Well, after you did it to them."**

 **"Naturally. I am their 'wicked mistress' and they're my 'put-upon servants' in the old style," Margot snickered. "That's a classic trope; probably a bit too timeworn to work well these days. But doing it in reverse, 'man bites dog' style – that's rather more interesting."**

 **"'Interesting' does the trick, with storks" Rhubella conceded. "It got me and Fifi our daughter Gigi. I can't complain. And I managed to find 'skunk-hunks' to pass on to Fifi, as many as she wanted."**

 **"You becoming a skunk-magnet is an interesting development," Margot mused. "More than a mere magnet. You're the champion skunk attractor. A skunk-magnate!"**

 **"That's how I ended up, all right. Who'd have thought it? A few years back at Perfecto, we were scanning the 'world's richest men' lists for matrimony targets." Rhubella said wonderingly. "Nothing like either of us ended up happy with."**

 **Margot raised an eyebrow. "Yes, the Perfecto ideal is – who would make, not the best husband, but the best divorce settlement. An idea we left behind. Turns out I've got access to all the gold in a separate California, and dear Plucky loves collecting it. When we're over in that alternate world, he comes striding in from the riverbank with a grin, a basket of fish and a gold nugget, most days." She also had a unique direwolf fur coat that, once properly tanned and re-tailored, she had received offers of a million dollars for from the luxury department of the Foulplay organisation. It was still hanging in pride of place in her Winter wardrobe.**

 **Rhubella frowned. "I can't help but worry you're going to get Noticed, with a capital N. And I don't mean by Acme Acres City Hall. They don't issue Import licenses between alternative histories, which makes it smuggling if anyone's watching." She paused. "Wouldn't Perfecto just love the scheme, though? It's just that someone out there in the cosmos is likely to object."**

 **"Welcome to the Twilight Zone, a place from where no lawyer can save you…" Margot gestured with a dramatic flourish. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "I've thought about it, after all the squealing Shirley did the first time we came back with a pack of untraceable gold. It's one of the contingencies I plan for."**

 **"Well, you're deliberately** _ **'breaching the laws of Physics for fun and profit'**_ **– that's like a Cosmic federal offence, for whatever Cosmos cops are out there" Rhubella pointed out. "And I mean, serious causality violations!"**

 **"Violations?" Margot sat back, an eyebrow raised. "Oh, no – I made sure it was all entirely consensual."**

 **Rhubella snorted, shaking her head. She paused as Gladys diligently dusted her way across the room and out of view. From the middle distance, there came a muffled squeal and giggle. "Thinking of willing… what was that you said about those two? About an upstairs maid and a downstairs maid…?"**

 **"Oh, yes," Margot said lightly. "Where they meet, the stairs are going to get very well polished. And they are." She nodded towards the next room. "Millie and Molly… it's going to be interesting to see how they turn out."**

 **Rhubella's naked tail twitched as she thought. "Considering what their mothers are like – you might think they might inherit their tastes." She paused. "On the other paw, it'd be funnier if they ended up as boy-crazy as Fifi. Without the '** _ **it'll never happen'**_ **trope. And 'funny' beats 'probable' any day, around here."**

 **"We'll see. Watch this space, fifteen years on." Margo said. Just then, her sharp ears picked up the tiniest of sounds from the corner of the room, where two eggs basked under heat ray lamps set to emulate a fashionable beach. If she had possessed external ears, they would have gone right up. "Gladys! Gracie!" She called out urgently. "The eggs look like they're hatching!"**

 **Although they had never attended Acme Looniversity classes, the pair managed a creditable blur of speed-lines and special-effect squeal of brakes as they hurried into the room, their instantly abandoned feather dusters dragged along in the whirling slipstream.**

 **"They are!" Gladys gasped, wide-eyed. "There's a crack already!"**

 **"We'll do it like we agreed?" Gracie took her woman's feather-hands in hers, and kissed her bill.**

 **Gladys nodded. The couple sat cross-legged, facing each other, embracing. The eggs were carefully placed between them, body heat keeping them warm.**

 **Rhubella looked on for a few seconds, her brow furrowed in thought. Then a light-bulb special effect appeared over her head. "I think I get it. Hatching chicks 'impress' for life, with the first parent they see. Usually their mother. But there's two of them, so they have to – arrange things."**

 **"Yes," Margot whispered. "It happened with me, with Brandi and Candi. 'Impressing' goes both ways. We'd best get out of eye contact range." They moved over to the far side of the room.**

 **"It's their first eggs, I mean eggs they carried, not brought by the stork," Rhubella mused. "That's… interesting. Their first pair, Millie and Molly – daughters are what you expect, from two girls. Who don't have the chromoplasm for a male chick. With two girls it's always a stork delivery. Not like today. But if they've never been into males, I don't see how they got those eggs."**

 **"That is interesting." Margot deadpanned. "I wonder how that could possibly have happened."**

 **Just then, came a twinned gasp of joy. When Margot looked, she saw Gladys and Gracie holding newly hatched chicks, looking down into their tiny faces as they 'Impressed'.**

 **Margot gave a dramatic sigh but spoiled it by winking broadly. "Better pass me those Foulplay chocolates, Rhubella. I do need the calories. Looks like I've got more hungry mouths to feed!"**

* * *

 **Two hundred yards away through the woods in a snowy clearing there was a small but perfectly engineered igloo, complete with ice-block windows carved from the frozen Lake Acme. Two pale-feathered loon girls, evidently aged around ten, sat on cosy buffalo hides shielding them from the snow, a pair of fish-oil lamps providing all the heat and light they wanted. According to the Acme Acres authorities, they were only two years old and far too young to start school – but the School Board had not been educated about Toons holidaying on alternative time-streams that ran at far faster rates.**

 **"We have new brothers," Brandi announced, still reading the large iron-bound book that was chained to a thick copper pole in the centre of the igloo, the conductive earth spike sunk through the snow and deep into the frozen ground below. Blue-glowing sorcerous discharges crackled along the chain.**

 **"Yes." Candi was avidly reading an ancient book wrapped in disturbingly pale, thin leather. "They don't have feathers yet. But they'll be green. And they have mammal chromoplasm. Like Douglas."**

 **"Very like Douglas. And Daddy." Brandi agreed. "Not like us."**

 **"Or Gladys and Gracie." Candi did not need to cast a spell or even concentrate very hard to see details of the two new-hatched ducklings now nursing with Margot. She glanced up, in the direction of the restored planet Phaeton. Using a lot of their power re-joining a long-lost branch of History had drained them severely for a month, but they were learning some very efficient spells at their Grandmother's house which helped make up for it. "Except they'll fly with their wings, like us. Got tail feathers and hollow bones."**

 **"Gladys and Gracie are surprised." Brandi noted, "They didn't expect sons."**

 **"Mother expects most things. You've seen the plans." Candi summoned the image of a long, securely locked fireproof bookcase in Margot's office where fifty loose-leaf folders held contingency plans for a wide variety of emergencies. They stayed entirely on tough waterproof Tyvek ® 'paper'; Margot had learned in Perfecto not just what computers could do for your security but what they could do to it. Most of the house's computers had no link to the outside world, for that matter.**

 **Just then, the psychic loons felt a strong disturbance in the Farce nearby as if something had breached the local frame of film, leaving a hole that had snapped back shut. Ripples of sorcerous energy spread out, and suitably qualified Toons could spot their centre point.**

 **"Somebody came through," Candi raised an eyebrow. "From Outside."**

 **"Let's look." Brandi focussed her will, in a ritual she had learned from the old shaman Running Bare. She crafted a pattern of spiritual energy ready to be sent out to hunt the information. "Go, Fetch!" she commanded.**

 **The Fetch vanished through the wall, accelerating inertialess and frictionless in the material world. In half a minute the sisters could see what it was looking at a mile away. Two small sets of eyebrows rose in surprise.**

 **"We know them." Brandi stated. "Let's go say hello." She carefully closed the book, locked it and made sure a warding spell held in various energies that were trying to seep out into the wider world.**

 **The ducklings ducked under the low entrance tunnel of the igloo, spread their wings and took off, airborne on muscle power rather than sorcery. They passed over the house and headed towards the slopes of Mount Acme. In a few minutes they spotted three small figures labouring through the deep snow, along a fire trail heading towards the Crowninshield mansion. Their trail down the slope was obvious from the air, as was the fact that it had abruptly started from nowhere in the middle of a clearing.**

 **Brandi and Candi circled, swooped in and made impeccable two-point landings, their webbed feet throwing up sprays of powder snow as they skied to a halt.**

 **"Beauregard. Belle and Blanche Bunny," Brandi identified them. "We met by the lake a year ago, this time line." She waved a dismissive feather-hand at the snowy forests around her, a poor degraded shadow of the pristine landscape she had been hatched in, and far preferred. "But you're a lot older than a year."**

 **"Well, ah do declare!" Blanche declared; her blue-grey fur only exposed on her adorable face framed by a warm parka hood. "You're extra older too! We thought you'd still be five or six!"**

 **"We went outside, to a nicer place" Candi said flatly. "It all runs faster there. What did you do?"**

 **"We done learned us some hexing," Beauregard said proudly, the blue-green buck still slightly older than his half-sisters. "Momma's 'gator kinfolk back in the deep swamp, they taught us. And we've been travelling some, like you."**

 **"And it was mighty nice weather, mostly," Belle added. The silver-blue doe sneezed, powder snow showering off her whiskers. "Not like this. But we had to come and warn you-all." She paused, looking at the two loon girls. "You-all been makin' a lot of noise with all your magics, and some folks out there don't cotton to it one little bit. You've got a real riled posse a-comin' to get you."**

 **End Chapter Two**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

 **Breakfast time at Saito Province Abandoned Military Base was a crowded occasion, Shirley McLoon thought as she cautiously filled her dining tray from the restaurant line. The Beautiful Mutant Battalion were sharing their mess hall with Unit Four Plus Two – and she had, miraculously, found some edible army food.**

 **"Like, that's harmonious enough," she nodded approvingly. "Organic brown rice, humanely farmed tofu with free-range seaweed. I could get used to this."**

 **"Me too!" Next to her in the line, Angelina Angelique looked down happily at a plate garnished with fish eyeballs. "Eyeballs for breakfast! And I asked the chef – maybe tonight we get whale!"**

 **"All harvested in the interests of legitimate scientific research, of course," Calgari said. He winked broadly.**

 **"Not just eyeballs - whale eyeballs…" Angelina smiled dreamily.**

 **"For us, comfort food. For Miss Loony here, Discomfort food," Calgari mused. "Doubleplusgood!"**

 **"Double plus gross. Like, totally thanks for ruining my appetite." Shirley grumbled, pointedly sitting at a table with only remaining room for one, next to Sergeant Gander and Corporal Barnes. She had checked all the vegetables were humanely harvested – and recalled with a wince her only real clash back at Acme Looniverity with Professor Sylvester. Although usually no more sadistic than most predators, the feline liked his succotash suffering.**

 **Corporal Barnes looked around the cavernous dining hall, a puzzled expression on his honest border collie features. His nose twitched. "Sir? There's something funny about this place. The sign outside says it's an old, long-abandoned base. But it smells brand new! Not just the paint – the concrete's fresh, and even the soil outside the buildings smells freshly disturbed, like they just dug foundations."**

 **Sergeant Gander nodded. "I asked Major Terata that same thing, last night. Apparently, it's the fashion for deniable units to hang out in abandoned bases. Trouble was, around here there weren't any spare ones. The Beautiful Mutant Battalion had to build this ancient abandoned baser from scratch, last year."**

 **"Yessir," the collie nodded dutifully. "That makes sense." He looked around, at the assorted crowd. Evidently the Beautiful Mutant Battalion functioned as a grab-bag of oddball characters, he thought. There was the possibly pretty human Toon with the polished steel face-mask sitting at the next table; exactly how she ate with it was (unlike the mask) an open question. "Sir, there's some strange folk joined our team on this one."**

 **"Handsome is as handsome does, corporal," Clarke Gander replied, following the collie's gaze. He winced inwardly at his choice of words. In the briefing notes, the masked girl Fujiko was described as '** _ **not just pretty, but drop-dead gorgeous. Lethal Dose 50% by eye contact at 60 yards radius.**_ **' He hoped that mask was firmly secured.**

 **"And what about that one? Over by the door?" Corporal Barnes asked.**

 **Clarke hesitated. "Wae? Think of her as – an android."**

 **The collie smiled, relieved. "That's swell, Sir. Androids are OK. Japan's famous for them." He finished his meal and headed out to polish his already gleaming boots ready for the day's duties.**

 **Shirley's eyes narrowed slightly as she scanned the admittedly somewhat mechanical figure of Wae, a tall feline with recognisably mechanical jointed limbs and a somewhat exaggerated hourglass figure. She sent a mental narrow-beam to Clarke.** _ **I'm not picking up any living aura from her. But I'm not getting any electrical activity, either. That's no android like I ever heard of. What is she really**_ **?**

 **Clark paused.** _ **Something I know you don't like the idea of. She was a shop clothing dummy, brought to life in strange plotline circumstances.**_

 **Shirley blinked, and her pale feathers bristled.** _ **An 'animate inanimate' – that's nearly as gross as Undead**_ **!**

 _ **Definite resident of Uncanny Valley,**_ **her aura agreed, surfacing on the material plane as soon as the radiantly sceptical collie was out of range.** _ **That place is totally off our sightseeing list.**_

 **Clarke gave a mental shrug.** _ **She didn't ask for it to happen, getting the 'Pinocchio meme'. And she is on our side**_ **. His eyes met Shirley's.** _ **Best not mention it to Corporal Barnes. You know he doesn't believe in such things. And when he doesn't believe… they don't happen.**_ **He projected the mental image of Wae suddenly shutting down whenever least convenient, becoming a lifeless store-front mannequin again** _ **. High-powered Panzaism is sometimes an inconvenient talent, in a unit of psychics.**_

 _ **Like, tell me about it**_ **, Shirley's aura sighed.** _ **If there's one Toon apart from Colonel Fenix in this bunch who's totally harmonious… in a weird kinda way… it's him**_ **.**

 **Shirley sniffed, looking at her blue-glowing astral twin. "Don't say you're still mooning over him, spook-girl? The one guy who you can't even look at?"**

 **Her aura's ghostly bill wrinkled** _ **. Fer sure I know the trope 'you want most whatever you can't get.' I was in class at Looniversity just the same as you, meat-head. But just knowing it**_ _ **,**_ _ **doesn't change things**_ **.**

 **"Meat-head?" Shirley squawked, outraged. "You know I'm a total vegan!"**

 _ **You weren't eating vegan when you were full of those unexpected eggs. Just look how Brandi and Candi turned out because of that. And biologically you're meat, all the time**_ _ **.**_ **Her aura snapped back.** _ **So okay, if 'you are what you eat' – would 'tofu-brain' fit better?**_

 **"Tofu brain. Ooh, I like that," Calgari murmured at the next table, passing round a bag of popcorn with his fellow Addams Academy alumni. "Very apt."**

 **Shirley ignored him, and glared at her astral-planar twin. "Are you totally sure you've not been visiting our good Corporal? When he's asleep, his aura would still be around for a date. And his unconscious mind wouldn't disbelieve in you then. It would explain a few things," She looked pointedly at her twin's midriff. "Like,** _ **'Miss unplanned mother of the month**_ **.** **'"**

 **"Nice one!" Angelina's eyes gleamed as she sat back enjoying the show. "And for an aura that'd work, too. Let me see… would a duck Succubus be... a Duccubus?" She smiled, popping out the astral planar claws and stroking the black-furred mitten that welled up through her feathers. "Lots of nice powers."**

 **"Could be, could be," Calgari whispered. Suddenly his head cocked to one side, as if listening intently. "Official flash news report! My Master is hungrily watching Shirley and Shirley fight, and laughing his head off." He reverently touched the permitted '** _ **Official Personal Religious Symbol, M2005**_ **,** **' that he wore under his tunic. A parsimonious Quartermaster Corps had simply taken the original M1937 issue and inverted it, to fit Calgari's particular take on that pantheon.**

 **"He say, 'hate the sinner, LOVE the sin'…." Tlalocopa nodded happily.**

 **A blur-glowing loon aura squawked in disgust and started to take on the aspect of a blazing electrical arc as the astral twin stepped back in outrage** _ **. I did no such thing. As if I would! And you know I can't lie – just how mondo inharmonious do you think I am? Or is your meat-brain starting to fossilize already?**_

 **Shirley was about to angrily reply, when a powerful mind broadcast to all the psykers in the room, smothering the argument like a firefighter's blanket of foam.**

 _ **Please.**_ **Colonel Fenix's astral voice sounded pained** _ **. Lieutenants McLoon and McLoon – not in front of our hosts and allies!**_

 **"Just when it was getting good," Calgari sighed, as beside him Angelina and Tlalocopa disappointedly spun-changed out of their cheerleading outfits they had been encouraging Shirley's quarrel with. Suddenly he brightened up. "Sir," he addressed Colonel Fenix in person, spotting the tall avian walking in alongside Major Terata "other military units have snipers, don't they? And we're sadly lacking that way. Well, this pair seem pretty keen on sniping at each other – why not give them the job? They'd get the cool shoulder badge and everything."**

 **The phoenix just shook his head. Major Terata cast him a pair of '** _ **I get this all the time too'**_ **sympathetic looks. "Now we're all working together so very well," Colonel Fenix's voice dripped with irony "It's time to meet the rest of our team. Def Mettle Foundry just called; they'll be here shortly. Then we can start to move."**

 **"It's not like you've not worked with allies from overseas before," Sergeant Gander said, turning to the Addams Academy alumni. "That Finnish skunk corporal did good work with us last year, as an Exchange Deniable Forces member."**

 **"I remember him. Mister '** _ **Hellish stinky from Helsinki'**_ **" Angelina said innocently.**

 **"And his pal, that official Sanctioned Hacker ® from Athens," Calgari said. "Zorba the Geek."**

 **"Is their country, Beautiful Mutants they get place of honour, always go first," Tlalocopa suggested. "Find the tripwires, curses and landmines."**

 **"Good plan!" Angelina whispered. "We're a stealth unit, and that's what the bad guys will be looking out for. Having a huge, noisy main battle tank covered with spikes and sinister runes… perfect camouflage! They'll never suspect it's us!"**

 **Outside the dining hall, there was a wide paved area with roads leading to the main gate. Just pulling onto it with a rattle of tracks was a familiar sight – the spike-covered armoured bulk that Def Mettle Foundry used to good effect in their concerts and videos. It pulled to a halt and hatches opened in a shimmer of released hot air – the crew was one Shirley recognised. Frank Sikosis waved from the turret, the wolven leader and lead guitarist vaulting lightly to the ground with his band following him. Most of all she was glad to see the neo-hippie loon Drogo de Vere, clad as usual in an ethically sourced bamboo fibre uniform, tie-dyed with organic dyes in earth-toned camouflage.**

 **Shirley blinked, scratching her head-feathers after waving to the new arrivals. Some things had changed. The vehicle seemed to have lost a lot of bulk. "Like, the GRAVVS METALLICVS went on a diet, or some junk? It's missing all the bolt-on armour you had on the sides." Her keen sense of smell was entirely missing the usual exhaust stench, though plumes of white vapour were rising in the frosty air from the engine decks. "And you've changed to a clean engine too? That's way eco-harmonious."**

 **Drogo de Vere gave a tight smile and gestured towards the sharply angled front of the vehicle. "On Japanese tours, we used to have real problems with this environment. You know how our reactive runic armour works – and what it works against."**

 **"Fer sure." Shirley winced slightly, calling to mind the kind of radically uncool footage Plucky used to love watching – ultra-slow-motion films of shells hitting armour plate, ploughing through multi-layered compound armour arrays before being brought to a standstill, or else bursting devastatingly through. The same sort of film for Def Mettle Foundry's vehicle would usually show a visually focussed bolt of dark Cuteness energy hitting the sinister runes that protected its outer layers. Sintered Tungsten runes held in a matrix of cold-forged iron tamping mass would blow to plasma in a millisecond, transforming Kawaiionising radiation into mundane heat – and the ablative layer behind would blow the super-hot material away from the vehicle to protect the crew. "But that's totally not my genre; I graduated in Comedy, not mil-techno-thriller sci-fi. So not my scene."**

 **Drogo nodded. "But you can work out why we had to do it here, of all places."**

 **Suddenly Shirley blinked. She looked around, realising what Kawaii-reactive armour implied in the Anime Japan. "Like, wow. The ambient Cuteness level around here – all the time – that'd be a mondo huge problem. Just driving down any street. The energy you'd soak up!" Despite her style being poles apart from everything the GRAVVS METALLICVS represented, she could see the problem.**

 **"Yes. We'd start to cook inside an hour even with the hatches open. And that's in Winter. So we had to take most of the reactive runes off. Nothing left protecting sides and back but the bare hull, although it's high-dourness steel. But take a look at the front plate," Drogo smiled, waving expansively with a feather-hand. "My idea."**

 **Shirley's aura walked towards the frontal arc and strolled ghost-like right through it.** _ **Wierdsville,**_ **she reported.** _ **You've kept the frontal runes – and wrapped them in a water boiler. It's picking up three hundred milli-chans of Cute per square metre just standing here. The steam runs the vehicle!**_

 **Drogo nodded. "That way, we could put some really serious, Aleph class runes on the front." He hesitated. "Our first version caused some... collateral damage. Mental burns to bystanders seeing them. Couldn't drive through Mega-Tokyo like that. Had to invent a special material for the outer layer that's opaque to light, but not Cuteness."**

 **"Which leaves us with all the protection on the frontal arc, and not a lot elsewhere," Frank Sikosis added. "Like a Smurf Destroyer."**

 **"We'll be watching your backs, as best we can," Colonel Fenix assured him. He turned to Unit Four Plus Two. "Grab your gear, Toons – we're moving out."**

 **Half an hour later, they were in a brightly painted Assault Bus moving through the streets. Much against her better judgement Shirley found herself again on the back seat with the Addams Academy trio as they excitedly looked through their equipment.**

 **"I can't believe Major Terata let you bring along that biohazard playset the bad guys are selling" Shirley shook her head. "You could so wreck an ecosystem! Like a short-order chef with a new recipe."**

 **Calgari winked. "We could get famous. Go viral, even."**

" **And why not?" Angelina smiled, tapping the test tube. "It's a good old tradition, creating fun new plagues. It's in the Bible, even."**

 **Shirley looked on dubiously. "Like, which bit?"**

 **The magpie gestured expansively. "Right at the start! '** _ **And he said**_ _ **,**_ **'** _ **Let there be blight!' And there was blight. And he saw the blight, that it was good**_ **.** **'" She cocked her head critically. "I'm sure that's the original. I expect there were transcription errors in the written version."**

 **"Ah, Shirley. I'm really starting to suspect sacrilege and blasphemy just… aren't things that make you smile." Calgari shook his head sorrowfully. "Someday I'm hoping you'll be saved and see the Dark."**

 _ **Saved? Only time your grody Master saved anyone… he saved them for dessert.**_ **Shirley's aura sniffed.**

 **Shirley wrinkled her bill disgustedly but said nothing. Her aura pointedly channelled a long-ago incarnation who remembered the unlucky fate of the stone tablet containing the last pair of the Twelve Commandments. Ten had been all that safely made it down the mountainside, which explained a lot about subsequent history.**

 **"My Master quotes Scripture, when it suits him. Famous for it." Calgari said smoothly. "For instance, '** _ **Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live**_ **– he's got a few giggles out of that one, telling it to Inquisitors over the years."**

" **And how is that going to get us into some dark-side corporate building, anyway? You can't make an armoured door shrivel and die with plant plagues like some Toon's rose garden," Shirley snapped.**

 **Calgari looked up innocently. "I have ten pounds of rice in this pack, JPSDF rations. Angelina has a mutant strain of rice blast fungus. The blast from that much rice going up should do it."**

 **"Total eww!" Shirley recoiled. "I'd never do a grody trick like that!"**

 **"Si, we know. Sad for you." Tlalocopa commiserated.**

 **"Oh, Shirley," Angelina said, shaking her head. "Despite all the evidence, don't feel yourself totally useless. If nothing else, you can serve as an awful warning to others!"**

 **"She's refused medical advice several times, you know," Calgari explained to Wae, who was sitting in the next seat forward. "Irresponsible as always. She might be helped a lot by a risky, experimental brain operation. We know some radical, counter-culture doctors who'd just love to see if anything's inside that Loon head!"**

 **"Oh yes," Angelina said dreamily. "The kind with a cheerful bedside manner. Always giggling, rubbing their hands together in glee as they contemplate their next cutting-edge experiment."**

 **"And such devotion to their trade," Calgari said. "Why, some of the other fuddy-duddy old medics out there don't even give their favourite knives pet names! Let alone talk to them as they lovingly polish them every night before bed."**

 **"That style!" Tlalocopa nodded. The chupocabra rummaged in her Hammerspace pocket and pulled out a clean-picked goat skull. "Always carry one in first-aid kit, handy for emergencies. Maybe for broken skull, need transplant?"**

 **Wae turned unblinking eyes at the goat skull and compared it with Shirley's avian head. "Not a good fit?" She suggested.**

 **Calgari shrugged. "Toon anatomy is pretty much squash-and-stretch," he said. "Of course, naturally we'd have to make a few… adjustments. But they'd only improve her looks."**

 **"More Gothick," Angelina agreed. "The horns would help a lot. Come on, Shirley, if you don't upgrade you'll get left behind! Like with computers." She pulled out a hacksaw from her Hammerspace pocket, and sized up Shirley's neck. "We can have all the defective top bit off and the upgrade all done in ten minutes flat. I'm sure there's plenty of room for a loon brain in there. We can fill in with builders' spray foam."**

 **"I saw it done on TV once," Tlalocopa agreed. "No problems. Patient even lived!"**

 **Just then Colonel Fenix's telepathic voice reached out to his team.** _ **Heads up, people. We're taking a look at one of Watasawa's 'revival facilities.' So stay sharp.**_

 **"Hallelujah, Brothers and Sisters! We're all going to a Revival Meeting!" Calgari sang out. "Make a joyous noise, to the Deity of your choice. And mine has all the best tunes. Everyone says so."**

 **"He famous for it," Tlalocopa confirmed.**

 **Wae's face was immobile, but her head dipped as if puzzled. "This is 'revival' as in raising dead employees as Undead."**

 **Angelina winked knowingly. "That's far the best kind." She rummaged in the biological play-kit and held up a cocktail-shaker appraisingly. It was decorated with an image of a cheerful red-skinned devil girl in a cook's apron, stirring something in a pot from which skull-shaped bubbles were rising. "Hmm. Says in the notes you can do DNA splicing with this, for your own funky mix'n'match blends. Should be fun."**

 **"Mixer desks!" Tlalocopa enthused. "Make like DNA DJ!"**

 **Calgari looked over her shoulder, and whistled appreciatively. "Microscopic mixologist, even. And you've some exotic cocktail ingredients, all right."**

 **"Mmm." Angelina weighed up one test tube after another. "Let's see. This looks a catchy little number, '** _ **Nameless Sao Paolo strain #5**_ **'. Spliced with… let's try this Irkutsk Yodelling Sickness and – yes! Yes! Old Irish Potato blight! A plant to Toon crossover hit, why not?"**

 **"Sounds fun. Meanwhile I'll get busy cooking up something with Watasawa's other fine educational kit." Calgari cautiously patted the large box. "Oh, the irony, bringing them down with their own products. I had a go last night, my first batch should be ready by now. Watasawa getting hoist with their own petard; that really IS ironic."**

 **"And irony work fine with Toon bad guys," Tlalocopa nodded sagely.**

" **I thought Colonel Fenix made you promise not to use that 'fun with fluorine' chemistry set?" Sergeant Gander asked, even more cautiously.**

 **Calgari managed to look virtuous, although the strain on EinsToonian spacetime was clearly visible as the film distorted around him. "And no fluorine will be involved! That's what I'm sure he really meant," he said innocently. "This contains nothing but life-giving oxygen and pure water. Essentially."**

 **The tall goose looked critically at the heavily insulated stainless-steel flask in the raven's feather-hand. "A-huh. And what's really in there?"**

 **"Only oxygen and water, like I said." Calgari shrugged. "Combined, well … the details are just… details."**

 _ **Colonel Fenix always says… 'the devil's in the details.' And you should know all about that, with your grody Master**_ _ **,**_ **Shirley's aura muttered darkly, casting a haughty glance at the raven.**

 **"Neat 100% hydrogen peroxide is already pretty neat stuff, but it's only the start" Angelina enthused. "We can beat that. Put even more life-enhancing oxygen into the molecule. I'm sure that makes it… even healthier and more wholesome. Because oxygen is good, right?" She turned as if to face an unseen camera, and grinned. "Stick with those dull old chemistry classes, kids, and one day they'll get around to showing you the good stuff!"**

 **"Is educational, just like sticker on box says." Tlalocopa nodded happily.**

 **Sergeant Gander pulled his T-pad out and after a quick search turned peroxide-bleach pale. "Oh, for the love of the Saints Avery and Clampett. You've made… per-peroxide? Trioxidane?"**

 **"Better." Calgari winked. "Let's hope we can put it to good use before it warms up too much. If it gets to ten degrees things might get… difficult."**

 **"Loud," Angelina amplified. "Exothermic."**

 **"Old-school Toon dynamite is so cliché," Calgari pronounced.**

 **"Well, at least it's well below zero out here." Sergeant Gander relaxed a fraction, looking at the snowy scene around. Then he too froze. "Ten degrees; is that centigrade or Fahrenheit?"**

 **Calgari blinked innocently. "Kelvin, actually. Ten above absolute zero."**

 **"Way cool stuff!" Angelina cheered.**

 **"Completely insane," Shirley stepped away, unconsciously flicking her webbed feet as if to clean them from a filthy mud puddle she had stepped in. "Your grody Addams Academy has mondo bad karma, letting you loose."**

 **"Hey! Your school's the one who train you as Loony Tunes, not ours." Angelina objected. "And as for Loony – we take our cue from the top. Your Chief of Staff, and ours, the incomparable President Hitcher. Last time I saw our beloved President on TV, he had a hat with steel bracing cables like guy ropes to hold his head on, he's so violently insane." She gave a swooning sigh like a fan-girl meeting her idol. "What a guy."**

 **"It's so refreshing to see a politician who doesn't try to hide this sort of thing," Calgari said seriously. "Saves having embarrassing scandals later on."**

 **Shirley sighed, and turned to the 'animate inanimate' sitting next to her. Sergeant Gander was right, she told herself – Wae had not chosen to be brought to independent life, even if an unliving thing walking around was a horrifying idea. "I'm like, totally new in town," she said, gesturing at the streets of Mega-Tokyo going past. "Do you know the area?"**

 **Wae inclined her immobile featured head in assent. She pointed out of the window to a brightly lit building with long queues outside it. "Hai, Shirley-san. There is the National Museum of Fizzy Drinks. Has bottles of the first hydrogen-filled beer in Japan! Families come from all over Hokkaido to visit."**

 **"Wierdsville," Shirley frowned. "I'm so totally not into consumerism worship. Like, I wouldn't celebrate the first bottle of Weenie-Cola like it was some major world event."**

 **"We have that too," Wae nodded. "From first batch ever imported to Japan!"**

 **Calgari's eyebrows rose (a difficult thing with bird anatomy). "Vintage 1950's Weenie-Cola, really? If so, there's Toons back home who could really use it. A late Christmas present, we can call it. That'll help get a neat piece of history re-staged. High-energy performance art installations are a big new thing."**

 **Angelina's eyes gleamed. "You mean that bunch of Historical reenactors in BosToon, who've got everything else perfect to re-enact testing a genuine 1950's 'Device'? Sure beats running round the woods with muskets playing Rebels and Redcoats."**

 **"Yes. They've exactly rebuilt the historical Ivy Mike nuclear test shot; called their BosToon version Ivy League. Managed to get everything authentic and ready to roll but the test crew's original 1950's Secret Recipe Weenie-Cola." Calgari paused. "Perfectly legal till they hit the button; it's on private land and it's only a test, anyway."**

 **"Well, that's all right, then," Angelina nodded happily. "Imagine, Shirley. A bunch of keen scientist reenactors in horn-rimmed glasses, authentic 1950's nylon shirts and first-generation nylon pocket protectors who just need that final artefact. We can put a smile on their faces. That'd be good Karma, wouldn't it?"**

 **Shirley turned paler than ever.**

 **"Great film, si, for a sequel – 'Bikini II – the Atoll strikes back!" Tlalocopa suggested. "And all good karma too. What goes around comes around."**

 **The raven strummed his air guitar. "It was on the Classics Radio channel last week – an old group '** _ **Hedgehoppers Anonymous**_ **' from the 1960's. How did it go?" He grinned, and sang jauntily:**

 **"** _ **It's Good News Week!**_

 _ **Someone dropped a bomb somewhere**_

 _ **Contaminating atmosphere and blackening the skies**_

 _ **It's Good News Week!**_

 _ **Someone's found a way to give**_

 _ **The rotting dead a will to live,**_

 _ **Go on, and never die…"**_

" **And indeed they have!" Angelina nodded appreciatively. "Watasawa certainly are into that." The assault bus slowed to a halt, and in the front seats they could see Major Terata talking urgently with Colonel Fenix while his other head barked orders in Japanese. "Looks like we're going to see how they do it, too."**

* * *

 **On the other side of the city, by mid-m** **orning the band assembled in the hotel lobby on their way to rehearsals. Mitzi looked down at her Clipboard of Organising ((+3) to all management-related skill rolls) and checked off a few final details.**

 **"Right, the coach is already waiting outside. It's forty minutes' drive to the venue. Has everyone got their scripts?" There was a chorus of nods and assents that she mentally ticked off, all but one of the group. "Plucky. Plucky? Earth calling Planet Duck! Are you coming or not?"**

 **A certain green mallard was sitting in the foyer immersed in** _ **True Conspiracy Fact (not Theory!) Stories**_ **. He blinked, looking around at the two bands assembled by the door, Mitzi tapping her business-shoed foot impatiently. "Huh? Oh, I was reading the good stuff." He pointed to the magazine. "Do you know; if you fall into a Black Hole the gravity stretches you into spaghetti? But, get this - there's written records of spaghetti on Earth centuries before we knew about space travel, let alone Black Holes. How did it get here? Aliens." He tapped the side of his beak conspiratorially.**

 **Mitzi sighed. From her Hammerspace pocket she drew out a pair of flight-controller's paddles and waved them towards the door. "Base to Commander Plucky, prepare to launch."**

 **"Whoo-hoo!" That's more like it!" A suddenly enthusiastic mallard sprang to his webbed feet and followed the rest out onto the open forecourt of the hotel, when even more suddenly there was a shattering crash as a ton of grand piano hit the pavement two steps behind him.**

 **"Incoming!" Plucky yelled, reminded all too well his bad experiences with ballistic anvils at Acme Acres. Round here there were evidently other things than anvils dropping out of orbit. He looked up, the only one to spot a pair of masked, black-clad figures vanishing over the hotel rooftops. "I know those guys! Shaolin Piano Assassins!"**

 **"Yes. Right. Because there's a two-page spread about them in your latest Conspiracy Studies rag." Mitzi Avery shook her head sadly. "Right next to the article on poodle delivery firms being used as air taxis for the Shadow Government." She paused. "Do you believe everything you read?"**

 **"That depends," Plucky retorted. "National news, no way. It's all put out by Them, you know. But some edgy underground newssheet illegally printed after hours on a standalone office photocopier, so They don't find out – sure, who wouldn't?"**

 **Mitzi studiously ignored his words. Had Plucky been as studious at Acme Looniversity, his graduation grade would have rivalled Babs' almost unheard-of 'summa cum loony' double distinction.**

 **Dizzy was standing rapt, entranced by the echoing noise as bits of piano bounced resonating around the pavement before coming to rest. "Yaa! What sound! Should have sampled it."**

 **"Well, it's an idea for the next album," Mitzi allowed. "I tried to get our local agents buying up some of those old-fashioned giant TV sets for that. Some other band got in first and bought the whole scrap pile. Flat-screens just don't have the same acoustics hitting the pavement from the tenth floor." She gave the band a business-like smile as she smoothed the hem of her smart skirt suit. "We'll manage without. Now, we have rehearsals."**

 **"But the Shaolin Piano assassins?" Plucky protested, scanning the roof skyline.**

 **Mitzi looked at him pityingly. "If there really are any out there, looks like they need practice too. They missed you. Bad shots."**

 **Dizzy grinned. "Mallard mash. Street pizza yummy. Pressed duck Chinese style, yummy too!"**

 **"My loyal band members Mitzi and Dizzy. Should be called Phillis and Steine," Plucky grumbled. "Philistines."**

 **They piled into the band's bus and relaxed in the spacious seating.**

 **"So. Is this your first film role?" Mitzi asked Michiko as the coach pulled out.**

 **The Kitsune nodded shyly. "Yes, Mitzi-San. We only do live shows before."**

 **"Ah. Back in class, we'd do all kinds of musical numbers. Loved playing anything by They Might Be Giants," Plucky reminisced. "I did 'Particle Man' showing me soundly beating all foes as a world-class wrestler! 'Istanbul' with me and my sidekick Hampton as super Oriental treasure-hunters - Aladdin and 'Indy' eat your hearts out!"**

 **Mitzi and Dizzy exchanged glances; they recalled how well Plucky had really done in the class films. Routine anvil-dodging had been a welcome relief afterwards for him.**

 **The mallard gave a dramatic flourish. "I loved all TMBG's tracks. Still do." He pulled an air guitar out of Hammerspace, and sang:**

 **"** _ **Tour the world, in a heavy metal band**_

 _ **But they run out of gas, the plane can never land**_

 _ **He wants a shoehorn, the kind with teeth**_

 _ **Because he knows they don't exist..."**_

 **He broke off, frowning. "I never knew how that could work. Not being able to land."**

 **Mitzi Avery considered the matter. "It'd work," she said "If it was an aerospace 'plane' circling in orbit. You'd need fuel for the retro-rockets to brake and start re-entry." She opened the clothing bags and took out her stage outfit, which oddly enough included an apron with large front pocket. Putting it on, she turned to Dizzy smiling. "This just arrived last night for the show. Like it?" Pulling the front pocket tight, she licked one finger and sensuously rubbed it along the opening.**

 **"Yaaaaaa!" Dizzy Devil's eyes crossed at the sight, and his tongue unrolled on the floor like a roll of carpet. "Mitzi hottest!"**

 **Ore of Boron exchanged meaningful glances. "Tasmanian Devils are marsupials," Michiko whispered, nodding significantly. "Marsupial girls have pouches. Now she has one."**

 **"We wear aprons like that for Captain W." Shinobu whispered back, her eyes shining. "He no resist us!"**

 **Mitzi Avery's eyebrow rose. "Listen up, girls. I can lip-read. In English and Japanese, just so you know."**

 **Three metal fans blushed a dull cherry-red in embarrassment, and their mouths clamped firmly shut. In half an hour the coach arrived at the concert hall without further incident.**

 **Walking inside, Shinobu's eyes went wide as she saw the band's flugelhorn towering above them, the great brass cylinder wrapped in control wires and fuel lines. "Some instrument!"**

 **"It's instrumental in our success," Mitzi deadpanned.**

 **"Ah-huh," Vinnie Deer nodded, smiling. "Looks like the roadies got it set up right. Bolted down real swell." He checked the flugelhorn over for a minute, and nodded. "Core bypass doors shut, engine suck-in doors open, inlet cone forward in start position. Afterburner looks good. Fuel pressure… looks good. Zip fuel igniter, ready. We're ready to rumble."**

 **"I can play anything in the band," Plucky waved at the stage. "Ready to rumble? You've not heard a rumble like this one!" He ran to the keyboard and began flicking switches. The final one was protected by a cage, which he blithely flipped open and stabbed down a feather-finger. "Rock and roll!"**

 **Unknown to the band, fifty feet away and a storey underground, six masked, black-clad figures were silently crawling through a concrete tunnel that led into the building and their target. The leader held up his or her hand (wearing traditional Ninja masks, it was hard to make out details) and sniffed, at a sudden strong chemical scent.**

 **Just ahead the tunnel was suddenly lit up by a brilliant green flash, and the roar as of a huge jet engine firing up – yet strangely melodic, as if it had been musically tuned. And then they discovered why, where a traditional concert hall had an orchestra pit, one catering to the high-energy sound needed a spaceport style flame trench.**

* * *

 **Half a mile away, Babs and Buster sat warmly wrapped up in the local park waiting for Gogo to finish his eighteen-hour shift at Watasawa and meet them for lunch.**

" **You know, Buster," Babs said thoughtfully, lightly tapping her front teeth with the pencil "this could be the start of a regular series. Back in our class films, we did that road movie 'Babs and Buster go Hawaii.'"**

 **"Now we're in the heartland of Cute. Kawaii, not Hawaii?" Buster suggested.**

 **"Heh. Now it's our road trip to Anime Japan. Plenty of scope for more like that – the series could run and run." Babs spin-changed into a track and field outfit, and jogged on the spot.**

 **"Which is another thing rabbits are good at," Buster agreed. He paused. "A regular series – '** _ **Rabbits run the world!**_ **' Like I did with '** _ **Elmyras round the world'**_ **back in class."**

 **"Oooh. I remember. Real horror-show," Babs gave a mock shudder. "I know it's not new, when a team's been going awhile they need new ideas. Like – 'Abbott and Costello meet Dracula', 'Abbott and Costello meet the Wolfman', 'Abbott and Costello meet President Nixon'…"**

 **"That last one, they never publicly released. Way too scary. I think Acme Loo has a copy in the film vault's Restricted section," Buster avowed. "There are things that Toons were Not Meant to Know, Professor Coyote says." Their old Professor had once let slip that in the holidays he served on the worldwide steering committee that decided the current limits of allowable knowledge.**

 **"Hmm," Babs considered the matter. "It's an idea. But now – on with the show! Got to stay productive." She smiled, taking her buck's white-gloved paw and pressing it gently to her softly furred belly. "That's a rabbit thing, too."**

 **"No wonder we appear in so many films," Buster mused. "The studios like our… high production values."**

 **"You stimulate – I ovulate." Babs nuzzled him lovingly. "Works for me!"**

 **"Heh." Buster rubbed cheek ruffs with her. "And it works in 6-D too! Blitz got his teleport ability there – who knows what our next cub's going to have?"**

 **"Anything's fine. It beats trying to get super-powers by being exposed to bursts of exotic radiation," Babs said. "Didn't work for what's-his-face, Kansas Klutz last Christmas. That old trick hasn't worked since Nuclear was new and patriotic, in the 1940's! Giant insects, super-powers – it used to do so much back then."**

 **"Well, radiation decays, it's famous for it," Buster allowed. "None of the right sort left anymore."**

 **"Bad planning on somebody's part. Should have put creosote on it," Babs sniffed. Suddenly her expression softened. "Oh, Buster dear… you know my siblings? Mom's first litter was just li'l old me – like ours is Blitz. After that – Mortimer, Benny, Jenny and Katie all turned up together. And the other litters were in fours and fives, even."**

 **"All brought by the stork, in your Mom's case," Buster pointed out. His un-gloved paw gently caressed where Babs' belly-button would be if she had one. "Could get a little… wearing, doing all that the hard way."**

 **"Sweetie Bird managed to lay an egg bigger than she was," Babs recalled the cute pink nasty canary, and her velociraptor boyfriend. "Acme Loo's 'Squash and stretch' classes have SO many uses."**

 **Suddenly two sets of ears perked up at a thundering roar from a heavily reinforced concert hall at the edge of the park.**

 **"Last time we heard that sort of opening note, we found out about the 'little extras' ACME left lying around in our burrow," Buster Bunny commented, recalling good reasons not to buy decommissioned missile silos from the notoriously slapdash company. "Duck and cover! Something's launching, all right."**

 **"Hmm," Babs shaded her eyes in the low Winter sunlight as she spotted six scorched figures shooting out of a tunnel in a plume of smoke, performing a graceful ballistic arc and splashing down in the middle of a frozen ornamental lake a hundred yards away. "Well, that breaks the ice at parties. Ponds too."**

 **"Those mutant Koi Carp don't seem to appreciate unexpected guests dropping in," Buster said, watching a running battle as the black-clad new arrivals tried to get out with a swarm of huge hungry-looking fish proving they were more than ornamental. "I could be wrong. Looks like they're pleased to see them for lunch. Don't suppose they get fed much under the ice."**

 **"Extreme sports get more so by the year," Babs marvelled. "Shot out of a cannon, dive through the ice, freestyle giant fish wrestling, swim back to shore… I wonder what their next event is? Looks like the local slant of that big sports project we did in our final year – the 20-part Dodecathlon."**

" **Or in your case, Doe-Decathlon," Buster quipped. "How about Dodo-spotting?" He reached into his Hammerspace pocket and triumphantly pulled out a tin of ACME spotted paint. "Like this!"**

" **Or like that." Babs pointed down the street as she spotted the bird in question, heading towards them. She stood and waved. "Gogo! Glad you could get away! We've been hearing dire things about where you work. Merumo's been telling us."**

 **Gogo grinned. "It's not all bad working there. There's suggestion boxes in every office, and whatever's the best, most luxurious suggestion – we get given something even better, every year!"**

 **Babs blinked. "Really?"**

 **"Sure! Last year the best suggestion was all staff get an all-expenses-paid six-month round-the-world cruise vacation. And the computer agreed."**

 **"Well – nothing could be better than that," Buster allowed.**

 **"Sure! So that's what they gave us, even better. Nothing!" Gogo nodded vigorously.**

 **"Right. And nothing could be cheaper, too." Babs' ears went right down.**

 **"That's a novel way to get motivation," Buster said. "Mostly it's either management by the carrot or the stick. Prefer carrots, personally."**

 **"It's a rabbit thing," Babs deadpanned.**

 **"Oh they motivate you, yes yes they do!" Gogo enthused. "The way the spiked office ceiling comes down, as the project deadline gets nearer – it really drives it home to you."**

 **"You'd have to look sharp," Babs said. "Really puts the 'dead' in 'Deadline.'"**

" **We get the point," Buster added. "That's a high-pressure job all right."**

" **Yes yes! And they keep us busy. My manager, she's the world's smallest fennec fox. But what ears! She hears you not working three rooms away!" Gogo smiled. "Doesn't miss a detail, either."**

" **A tiny supervisor, always on your case," Babs mused. "A real micromanager. And she's a vixen. What they used to call a 'Voop.'"**

 **"I wouldn't call her that to her face. Snout, even. She's a very important person there." Gogo protested. "She's Personal Assistant to the company's Public Relations head!"**

 **Babs shrugged. "So, she's a VIP Voop."**

 **Buster's ears wriggled in glee. "And more! She's a PR's PA VIP Voop!"**

 **Babs suddenly thought of something. "Buster," she said slowly. "Remember two years ago, we took those Summer jobs product testing at ACME?"**

 **"Ah, the delights of testing their fine products," Buster reminisced. "Like the ACME guaranteed non-exploding Pet Rock ™." He paused. "That line never did get into the catalogue. Too many duds."**

 **Babs spin-changed into a white lab suit, and from her pocket extracted a sheaf of documents. "Too true, Blue-boy. But I kept our ID cards, so it looks like we're still accredited members of the ACME Corporation. Why not take a look at Gogo's workplace? You'd have to be insane to want to go there out of hours but… well, that's Gogo."**

 **"Woo-woo!" Gogo briefly turned into a steam whistle. "You'll get to meet my dear #00079886!"**

 **"As long as she doesn't want to give my buck a big hug," Babs said. "I've seen how she can put the squeeze on a bar of TiToonium the size of a railroad sleeper. Cold-forged, too."**

 **Gogo nodded. "Yes yes! Follow me, folks – it's right down the road."**

 **Buster shrugged, spin-changing to match Babs' outfit. "This should be – interesting," he deadpanned. And following Gogo, the lepine lovers headed towards the dread gates of Watasawa Gratuitously Heavy Engineering (Evil) Incorporated.**

* * *

 **Margot Mallard was standing at the window, enjoying the sight of low afternoon sun on the snow-sparkling trees outside the Crowninshield Mansion, when she spotted movement in the woods. Two small figures that she recognised with about as much real affection as she had in stock for anyone – and three strangers.**

 **"Well, now," she said aloud. "Looks like our little Brandi and Candi have found some good friends."**

 **Gracie put down her duster and came over to look. "How do you know they're friends? Maybe they just found them lost in the woods."**

 **Margot smiled. "My daughters are mind-readers. They don't get fooled easily. And they drank every watt from a nuclear plant when they were four years old – if they had enemies, they know what to do about it. Their wilderness life and my Perfecto traditions give them the right edge, don't you think? They have the power, and can get more. As much as they need." Something steely and hard-edged showed behind her usual pleasure-seeking façade for an instant. "Let's welcome them."**

 **"It's been three days since they came indoors," Gracie said. "You'd think they'd be cold."**

 **"Mmm." Margot pulled a sliding wardrobe door open, and selected her direwolf fur coat. She looked down with a smile at what was on the shoe racks – a shoehorn, with teeth. After hearing Plucky sing his favourite song a few times she had commissioned a set of them made, just for the sake of it. Big, sharp, gleaming carnivore teeth equipped them.**

 **"Heh." She recalled what Plucky had told him of Shirley's clothing tastes – "Some loons insist on wearing vegetarian shoes. Vegan shoe, meet Mister Carnivore shoehorn." Shrugging the coat on, she went town to meet her adoptive daughters and the newcomers.**

 **Just before Gracie opened the door, Margot's attention was drawn by a flashing light on her T-pad. She raised an eyebrow; the security camera outside and the ever-twitchy Security computer in the basement had spotted something very strange. Raising an eyebrow at one particular still-frame image relayed to her T-pad.**

 **"Hello, girls," she smiled as the door opened to reveal Brandy and Candy, with three heavily dressed rabbit cubs standing behind them in the snow. "Do come in! And won't you introduce your friends?"**

 **"Beauregard, Blanche and Belle Bunny," Brandi said flatly. "They came to warn us. There's people coming in from Outside who don't like us."**

 **"Indeed. I'm glad to meet you." Margot waved the five indoors before instructing the house computer to look sharp. Hidden sharp bits unsheathed silently around the outside of the house, making any conventional attack through doors and windows painfully unlikely.**

 **Ten minutes later, Margot had heard the news. And digested it while Gladys and Gracie fussed with trays of hot chocolate and cookies. The three young rabbits drank the drinks politely, but did not seem too keen on cookies. Not even carrot ones.**

 **Margot smiled, as Gladys departed to check on the nursery. "Gracie," she looked up at her loving Maid "Could you bring in some of those raw fish we have on ice? The very fresh ones from Lake Acme?"**

 **Gracie blinked in surprise but went off and dutifully returned with the full tray, intended for supper that evening. Mystified, she put them down on the table next to the untouched cookies, not noticing the gleam in three sets of eyes.**

 **Margot noticed. "I'm going to close my eyes for five seconds," she said conversationally. "Gracie, I suggest you do the same. Feel free, Belle, Blanche and Beauregard."**

 **As she closed them, there was a ferocious snapping and swallowing sound as if something far more predatory than a rabbit had been unleashed in the room. Ten seconds she opened her eyes to see the big platter of fish empty and Belle dainty dabbing at her muzzle with a napkin.**

 **Gracie opened hers, and blinked in confusion. "I didn't think rabbits would like fish."**

 **Margot looked knowingly at the three siblings. "But you're not always rabbits, are you?" She tapped her T-pad. "One film frame in twenty-four, you're alligators. It's subliminal, but the security system looks hard for anything unusual. I guessed you could – hold the shape for longer if you want to."**

 **"Well, I do declare!" Blanche blinked. "T'ain't many folk ever notice our shtick. It's our birthright."**

 **"Our daddy's from this here town, name of Buster Bunny," Beauregard said proudly. "When our mommas met him down home in the swamplands on the ol' plantation, they knew they'd found a keeper. So they kept him. Big Boo's my momma."**

 **"And Sissy Boo's mine," Blanche declared.**

 **"Li'l Boo's my momma. Leastways, that's what they called her back when our mommas married Daddy." Belle said. "That was back home on the real time line. This one – it's like the train got itself switched to the wrong track, years back."**

 **"They can jump time tracks, like us," Brandi offered.**

 **"We were nearby one time, we heard you do that thing," Beauregard said. "Ah reckons folk as can hear such-like, they done heard you clear across the planes."**

 **"And we knew we'd met before, when we were li'l. Tracked your spell trace in the Farce, found where you-all were headed." Blanche said. "And found the tracks of a whole passle of other Toons on your trail. Didn't see them, don't know who they are, but they're heading your way fer sure."**

 **Margot thought hard. Going to the locked steel cabinet in the next room, she opened it and selected one of the loose-leaf folders. "Thirty-one C, I think fits the bill," her own bill twitched in a hint of a smile. "Brandi? Candi? You know your dear father's always wanted to see you in show business." The chicks had always been happiest in home-made fur and hide clothing and scorned fairy princess outfits, so the Junior Beauty Pageants Plucky had fondly imagined his daughters in, never happened.**

 **"Yes, Mother," Brandi and Candi chorused.**

 **Candi cocked her head to one side. "But all the films and TV stuff he wanted us to be in – it isn't real."**

 **Margot opened her arms, and her feather-arms embraced her adoptive daughters. A steel-hard look was in her eyes, but a mischievous glitter too, like a smiley face sign drawn on a missile warhead. She looked at the rabbit/gator siblings and nodded slowly. "We've got enemies coming who can hunt us across alternate dimensions. Running won't help. Walls won't stop them. Do you know what we're going to do? We're going to make a movie."**

 **End Chapter Three**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

 **Smoke stained the clear skies of a pristine Earth. A village was burning; wooden framed tepees and wickiups were already reduced to glowing embers by the invaders' fire spells.**

 **Three figures stood in the middle of the village site, while around them a dozen more diligently scoured the ashes for what they had come surprisingly far to find. One suddenly stooped and grabbed what had been shielded by a cooking pot from the fierce flames. He held it up, something glittering mirror-like "Facilitator! I found some! This mirror's off-world tech!"**

 **The Facilitator, a human Toon of stern demeanour and short-clipped black hair, looked at it and winced. "That's no mirror. That's a twenty-first century video data storage disc." He looked down at the DVD, garishly labelled 'Producer** _ **Russ Meyer's biggest, bounciest… hits'**_ **on the unpolished side, and frowned. "No way of anyone playing it out here – just as well. Maybe traded to be used as a mirror. That's bad. Cross-time contamination at its worst."**

 **One of his volunteers, a pink-furred feline, looked around at the devastated village. "I know the Charity do good works. But – I didn't expect we'd have to do this."**

 **The Facilitator nodded sympathetically. "Afraid so. You've seen worlds with ecosystems wrecked with invasive plants and animals. You have to get in fast and stop them – dead – before they can spread. Cultural memes are just as deadly. This is an unspoiled timeline – and it has to stay that way. Even if… well, sometimes you need to make sure there's nobody around who remembers what they saw, that doesn't belong in this history." The hawk shaman had proved the toughest foe, he reflected, and had managed to shield his village for nearly an hour. Calling down lightning from the clouds had been quite a feat.**

 **Just then there was an urgent mental signal from their Field Mage. The party hurried over to where he was casting Detection spells, while more mundane investigators scoured for physical evidence.**

 **"The Gateway was right here." The Field Mage, a reptilian volunteer from the planet Krawlinoff, pointed at a dilapidated hut, evidently abandoned a year or so, next to a rushing stream. "Used several times to jump timelines. I can't see anything remaining to say just who cast it. Or why they'd come here in the first place."**

 **"We can!" Two more of the charity volunteers waved. "There's a dump of crushed quartz rock here in the weeds. It's crude hit-it-with-a-hammer ore separation. But no question – someone's been mining stream placer gold deposits. And the villagers had no use for the stuff, we could tell. They don't have pottery, let alone metalworking."**

 **"It's hardly devastating stuff, though," the pink feline argued. "Just taking nuggets out of a stream, that's not going to hurt anyone."**

" **And taking it elsewhere to another timeline breaks causality on two worlds. At huge profits. That's how it all starts – in a couple of years they'll come back with heavy digging machinery they bought with the loot and start strip-mining, just you see," the Facilitator said grimly. "I've seen worlds where that's happened, too many times. Took us long enough to find this place. Only just in time, looks like."**

 **"I've got a directional fix now from the Gateway," the Field Mage held up a large enchanted crystal he had dug out from under the hut. "And a thaumic echo of what they used to escape – it's a classic '** _ **No Place Like Home"**_ **spell. Pointing to someplace called Acme Acres, that's where the criminals went to dispose of the loot."**

 **"Right," the Facilitator nodded grimly. "We clean up all cross-cultural taint around here and then – Friends of the Cosmos® are going to have something eco-righteous to say about this Acme Acres place."**

* * *

 **A few miles outside that very place, while Margot leafed through her most relevant plan against the pursuers homing in on her daughter's trail, her daughters had an idea of their own.**

" **Remember when Daddy plays that not-real flying game." Brandi said flatly. "This bit." Her visualisation took shape like a hologram; Plucky hunched over and square-eyed, intent on his NumbMindo games console playing the final level of 'Mega Wing Commander IV'. To judge from the rapidly closing missile tracks on the game's radar, that particular game session had not long to run.**

 **"** _ **Oh-oh! Incoming missiles got me locked on their radar, tracking, tracking!**_ _ **Deploy track breakers!" Plucky's panicking voice sounded like it came through a small and tinny speaker as he stabbed a feather-finger repeatedly at the buttons. "Jamming… jamming… oh noooooo!" On the screen the incoming lines converged relentlessly, there was a flash and the dread words GAME OVER appeared on the screen. He threw the NumbMindo console down in disgust with muttered curses about 'razza-fraggin' buggy games software', and the image faded.**_

 **"But when his friend Mister Bunny comes around and plays it sometimes, it turns out different for him," Candi nodded. Her visualisation showed Buster's virtual aircraft's jamming system successfully deflecting the computer player's missiles, which went sprinting off over the horizon like hunting dogs losing the scent trail and locking onto the next most obvious target. "We do that. To the people hunting us."**

 **"Yes. Need a lot of power," Brandi confirmed.**

 **"Can get, the metal-trees in the forest." Her sister nodded. "Need some of that long vine-sorta stuff that lightning stuff goes straight through, not touching."**

 **"Hmm." Margot thought briefly as she juggled translating her daughters' wilderness-based ideas into modern technology, then switched on her T-pad. Amongst other things, it held an online copy of the ACME catalogue. "Some of this?" She tapped one entry, then showed it to her daughters, who nodded vigorously.**

 **Switching the T-pad to phone mode, she drew her diamond-plus-grade credit card from its secure and feather-fingerprint activated Hammerspace wallet, called in an order at ultra-express delivery rates – and sure enough, in ten seconds there was the distinctive sound of a beak knocking on the door; a sonic boom followed the arrival of a laden Road Runner courier carrying a gift-wrapped coil of thick cable. Margot shrugged her direwolf fur coat back on and opened the front door.**

 **"Beep beep!" The bird said proudly, pulling a delivery receipt out of his own Hammerspace pocket and presenting it for inspection.**

 **"Yes, that's all in order. 100 feet of infinite current density qualified, state of the art superconductor." Margot checked the cable, signed for it and with a noticeable red-shift the speedy bird vanished over the horizon back towards the ACME depot. She shrugged the bulky coil of hosepipe-thick cable over her head like a climber's rope carried on her shoulder and smiled to her daughters. "I think I know where you want to use this."**

 **Four hundred yards through the forest was a cleared strip where the Interstate High-Tension Line carried its hundred kilovolts to Acme Acres, powering the lights in Acme Looniversity's exam rooms and other high-tension environments. Margot halted below the wires and looked up appraisingly, judging distances and the weight of the cable. Brandi and Candi looked on intently, as did the were-rabbits (or possibly were-gators) from further off.**

" **Now – seriously don't try this at home, kids! Only fully insured and irresponsible Cartoon characters should attempt it." With that, she held one end of the coil and with an expert heave, threw the other end over the power lines, jumping clear of the cable just before it touched. She had judged it perfectly; the ends of the cable now dangled just above the ground, the cold air crackling with leaking voltage. "Will that do?" She consulted the documentation that had come with it. "Says 'must operate below 30 Kelvin'." The official ACME catalogue boasted it was 'Room-temperature superconductor' although a tiny asterisk qualified it to mention how users might need to turn their room's air conditioning down a few degrees to get the best performance.**

" **We fix." Her daughters chorused. They concentrated their powers and the air around suddenly became a lot colder – for a few seconds a stream of frigid liquid air ran down the cables before they were sheathed thickly in what looked like ice.**

 **Margot stood clear, her webbed feet feeling chilly as a downdraft of super-cooled air cascaded like an invisible waterfall and spread out along the floor of the clearing. She had seen her daughters do this kind of thing before, and it always thrilled her. "With great power comes great freedom," she murmured contentedly.**

 **Two small loon girls closed their eyes, and began to pull energy down the cable, feeding their spell. First – their astral forms took flight, passing the Seventh Veil easily and soaring up to take a better view of the spirit plane. In a way, it was like climbing above a layer of clouds hiding the material world below – and high, strange contrails of thoughts and spirits flew high above them.**

 _ **There!**_ **Candi was the first to spot something heading in her direction, a seeking spell sizzling through the void like one of the re-entry vehicles in their Father's Retro Rocket Rumble game. But this was not dropping on a predictable curve – it was scanning the skies for one particular signal, and the twins realised – THEY WERE IT.**

 **Far away on the material plane, lights dimmed and elevator motors faltered as power was pulled out of the system. Two small, serious ten-year old chicks held it like a bucking firehose – and aimed. Had the incoming spell been an aircraft, its radars would have blanked out entirely with the overload, sparks flying around the cockpit. Blinded, the spell flew straight past the chicks and their jamming – seemed to hesitate then carried on into the far distance, as if spotting a new, faint target on the horizon.**

 **Brandi opened her material eyes and looked around the snowy clearing. There was a tang of ozone in the air. "We broke the scent. They went off past us."**

 **"Mmm." Margot's eyes nodded. "As long as they're still out there, they'll try again. And nobody does that to this family." She looked around, considering ways and means. "They'll be back, unless we find them first. First, we find out who 'they' are. Then – when they're looking the other way…" She smiled, remembering her Perfecto etiquette lessons and the awards she had won for proficiency in the Tactical and Strategic back-stab classes. "Then they'll get a surprise. For that – we're going to get you two a lot more power. And I think I know where to get it."**

 **Beauregard Bunny and his sisters had been looking on with magic senses of their own; the young buck put a paw up as if he was in class. "Where did they go? It was like they saw somethin' like the spell they's a lookin' for. Way over yonder." He pointed Westwards.**

 **"I have an idea about that," Margot said lightly. "'They were tracing the spell that brought you from Running Bare's world back to Acme Acres, right? Because they spotted you casting it?"**

 **Two small loons and three deceptive lepines nodded solemnly.**

 **"Well," Margot took an 'Occam Brand ®' razor out of her Hammerspace pocket and studied it. "Who else do we know cast that spell? The first one, before my daughters learned to cast their own? A certain Miss Shirley McLoon, is who."**

 **Shirley's biological daughters exchanged glances. Worry was one of the many emotions they were mostly missing. Which was just as well, or they would have worried about just what was currently homing in on their biological parent across the astral plane.**

* * *

 **Far away in Japan, the field teams of Unit Four Plus Two and the Beautiful Mutant Battalion were out for a nice cliff-top walk and picnic on a sunny late-Winter morning. At least, that was the impression their sun-hats and carefully chosen picnic baskets was meant to suggest.**

 **"This is like, a groovy idea," Shirley said cautiously, as she strolled in a carefully non-military style under bright afternoon sun that shone on the rugged Japanese coast. Bright stickers customised the tell-tale shape of her issued** _ **Basket, small, Picnic, Infantry Pattern 2016 Model 3,**_ **that she was levitating behind herself. She smiled at Drogo de Vere, the handsome and harmonious loon male acting as liaison for his team, who were staying out of sight. The GRAVVS METALLICVS was many things, but not stealthy.**

 **"I like the tie-dye camouflage," Angelina's voice ruined Shirley's brief good spirits, as she looked Drogo up and down appraisingly. "Very New-Age. They still have a few folk like that around here. There's that famous local singer Yoko, who took the stage name Yoko Orinoco. More Ecological, rain-forest sort of thing. She wants to be the most famous Japanese hippie since Yoko Ono."**

 **"That'd be a catchy tune…" Calgari mused, his Air Guitar appearing in his feather-hands. "Something like….**

" _ **Ono? Oh no, no, no, Yoko Orinoco**_ **…." The corvid crooned, strumming a tune on the virtual instrument.**

 **Angelina's eyes glittered mischievously. "You'd like her, Shirley – she's a real eco-warrior type like you. Into the Alternative Environment movement."**

 **"Alternative Environment?" Shirley queried cautiously. Anything that on the face of it seemed a good and reasonable idea was deeply suspect coming from the Addams Academy Alumni.**

 **"Oh, yes. Persuading endangered species to expand into fresh fields and habitats new. Rats, foxes and raccoons adapted to the urban environment, and they're thriving. So it should work for other species, right?" Angelina nodded. "Non-Toon polar bears hunting in overcrowded shopping malls… Siberian tigers stalking their prey in the alleyways. Plenty of prey for them. Relieves housing shortages, creates job vacancies. What's not to love?"**

 **"Is real win-win situation!" Tlalocopa enthused. "And everyone already heard of Urban Gorillas."**

 **"That's 'guerrillas', actually," Colonel Fenix corrected her as they came round a headland and looked into a bay. "Now. Get ready, people. Here's the place." He pointed to an island linked to the mainland by a narrow causeway. "Ecchi-Shima, it says on the map. Owned entirely by Watasawa."**

 **"We know that name!" Angelina said brightly. "It's in Shirley's handy travel book. You know, '** _ **Accursed and Profane sites of Japan**_ **.** **' Something about it being the site of a too-successful military experiment."**

 **Major Terata sighed. "Is true. In July 1945, secret unit of Japanese Imperial Navy carried out a test. A Psychiatric Pulse weapon detonation. The Kami, the spirit of the land never recovered. When Corporation bought it, land was already zoned for Evil Temple Development."**

 **"Look! There's someone coming out." Sergeant Gander had a set of binoculars in use.**

 **Shirley looked; there was a line of slightly stiff-legged shapes lurching down the causeway, dressed in ragged remains of business suits. "Eww. Zombies."**

 **"As their company motto goes, '** _ **Corporate Loyalty to the death – and Beyond!**_ **'" Calgari nodded approvingly. "And they mean it. I'm impressed. My Master loves hypocrisy, but doing without it just for once… I expect he'd understand."**

 **"And at rush hour they can pass on any Neo-Tokyo subway for ordinary workers." Major Terata's left head commented.**

 **His right head considered. "Very tired ones, but yes."**

 **"That's what I call a modern, socially inclusive, ethically diverse company," Calgari looked pointedly at Shirley. "They aren't Undead-o-phobic. Unlike some Toons around here."**

 **"Those dudes, like their souls already passed on to the next cycle, or some junk," Shirley snapped. "What's walking now is just a stolen body. Mega-gross!"**

 **"Ah, ah, ahh…" Calgari chided. "Not stolen. The Corporation legally owns them in life and death. The corporate lawyers would tell you so. Isn't that right, Sir?" He cast an appealing look towards Colonel Fenix.**

 **The Fenix winced. "That's technically true. As long as the power that animated them lasts, they'll work non-stop for free till they – wear out." He looked at Major Terata. "Do we know how they manage to Raise their employees?"**

 **"Hai. We know Watasawa worked on a death-ray project. Because they could." The mutant major nodded in stereo. "For such a Corporation it is expected."**

" **We'd never do something that grody," Shirley muttered.**

" **Of course not. The Disintegrator Cannon Projects that Specific Dynamics and Blockheed are working on for our military, are…. Entirely different." Angelina winked broadly. "Sure they are."**

 **Major Terata and Colonel Fenix's three heads cast worried looks in a three-way exchange. "Before they could develop working Death Ray, they had many failures. One was an Undeath Ray. They marketed both." Major Terata said.**

" **We need to seriously shut that place down." Colonel Fenix said quietly. "Astral scouts – forward."**

 **Pvs Lewis's astral form left his freezer cabinet and streaked forward, followed by Shirley's aura. No material barrier could stop them – but they bounced off an invisible wall just at the boundary of the security fence.**

 **"Like, are we amazed," Shirley shook her head. "Mondo major defences on this place!"**

 **"We go in on foot, the hard way," Colonel Fenix sighed.**

 **They made their way up from the beach to a broad plaza that was surrounded by blind-sided warehouse buildings. There seemed to be a fire door in the wall.**

" **Don't anyone step there!" Shirley hissed in panic. "I'm getting these awesomely negative vibes off that paving, like it's some grody Dark-side curse."**

 **Colonel Fenix paused. He kneeled down, getting a low angle on the solid-seeming concrete. At his mental command a hidden series of random cracks sprang into view, suddenly revealing it as a patchwork structure. He frowned. "As I feared. Crazy Paving, the weaponised version. You'd bleed Sanity Points with every step."**

 **"Neat!" Angelina exclaimed. "Like that dark-side Magic Carpet spell in my book - the Tragic carpet. Step on it and… ooh, tragic. But always fun to watch someone find out the hard way." Her eyes gleamed.**

 **"Doesn't hurt the zombies. But we'd be total loony-tunes, by the time we got across," Shirley winced. "if we could still remember where we wanted to go, or why."**

 **"Pity Sergeant MacRee is still on leave," Sergeant Gander said, his tail-feathers drooping. "He's already had violent insanity once, he'd be immune to getting it again. Like with measles."**

 **Shirley narrow-cast a thought to the tall phoenix** _ **. What about Corporal Barnes, Sir? He doesn't believe in that stuff. Maybe it won't affect him?**_

 _ **Good thinking, Lieutenant,**_ **the Colonel tight-beamed back.** _ **Better check**_ **. He beckoned the eager collie forward. "Corporal! Have you ever heard of weaponizing Crazy Pavement?"**

 **The collie nodded happily. "Sir, yes Sir! It was in this week's issue of Deniable Forces magazine! Sounds weird stuff, but if it's in official print, it has to be true."**

 **Shirley's head-feathers drooped.** _ **Like, mondo bad news, Colonel Dude. His power's no good here; he does believe in it.**_

 _ **The power of the Press,**_ **Hal sighed. He frowned, turning to Major Terata. "Everyone who could have gone over there unharmed, we're missing today. I knew we should have replaced those buzzards in the team. Last month we lost Corporal Montmoril and six enlisted birds from his flock. Very useful types to have in our line of work – no wonder another Extra-Special Forces unit decided to pull rank and poached them. They got posted to counterintelligence."**

 **Shirley nodded. "Like, they have way major negative talents. They're not just totally dumb – they're Counter-Intelligent. Their minds are way small targets to any psychic attack junk.""**

 **Major Terata gave a brief nod. "So. Step forward, trooper Wae. We have mission for you. Cross pavement and open door for us."**

 **The slightly mechanical figure walked forward and saluted. "Hai, Terata-Sama!"**

 **"Won't it, like, damage her Sanity too, dude-Sir?" Shirley looked up at Colonel Fenix, aghast.**

 **"Maybe not," Hal mused. "Shop dummies are not naturally intelligent. So Wae must be artificially intelligent – and maybe not vulnerable to the same things as us. You don't get computer viruses on plants, and visa versa. Plus, an Artificial Intelligence runs this place, planned the defences. I don't think it'd build anything nearby that could affect itself."'**

 **"Is this the point in the film where the lights go out, and a booming voice from below gloats,** _ **"Ha ha ha, foolish mortals! You dare to challenge ME?**_ **" Angelina asked brightly as Wae cautiously walked out over the crazy paving, halting every few paces to check the official issue JPSDF sanity dosimeter clipped on her belt. "I always love that bit."**

 **Shirley's bill wrinkled in disgust. Angelina had claimed to be a reformed character, when they first met – in her wild student days at Addams Academy, she had been of card-carrying Chaotic Evil alignment – since then, she and her friends had matured to Neutral Evil. Angelina had reacted with semi-convincing shocked surprise when Shirley had been deeply unimpressed by the idea of that being an improvement.**

 _ **Not my idea of reformed**_ **, her Aura shuddered, catching the thought.** _ **Unless it's like those gross 're-formed Mystery meat patties' Acme Loo cafeteria used to serve the class meat-eaters. Which served them right for their grody carnivore diet**_ **.**

 **For a second, Shirley's mood softened as she recalled her happy years at Looniversity, although it had seemed a very mixed experience at the time. The food-fights in the cafeteria had been legendary – she would have objected to the waste of good food, had there been any to waste. (The 'Daily Specials' board was updated every day. Sadly, it always said 'None.') It had been noisy and rowdy with barrages of heavy-calibre taco shell fire and cherry bombs bursting on all sides – but she had secretly enjoyed it, even while turning up her beak at the 'way grody mess'.**

 _ **She's made it across**_ **, her Aura commented.**

 **"There's a door," Wae called back. "I think I can get it open." She pressed on the door, which unexpectedly pushed back and opened the other way. "It says 'emergency exit' Sir."**

 **"Just the kind of place you might find a self-destruct device – the last thing you press if you have to make a run for it," Sergeant Gander muttered. "Or – would that be too obvious?"**

 **"Is big red button above door..." Wae called back.**

 **"Much too obvious." Major Terata said firmly. He hesitated. "And they'd know we'd think that. So it could be a real one, double-bluff style." Both heads turned to Hal Fenix. "What you think?"**

 **Colonel Fenix looked pained. "It's your team. It's a big risk. But – if there's any chance we can take this place down with one button push … got to be worth a try."**

 **"Push the button," Major Terata called.**

 **Sixty feet away, the jointed figure obediently reached up and pressed the unlabelled button. Immediately there was a deluge of fuming liquid, enveloping her in vapor. A pouch at her waist=belt gave an unearthly shriek of alarm before it dissolved like sugar in boiling water.**

 **"DIP!" Colonel Felix yelled. "Suit up!"**

 **Before the clouds of vapor could reach them, the Toons were struggling into their NBCC suits, the pulling their masks tight.**

 _ **Total grody**_ **, Shirley mind-cast sourly.** _ **And we like, lost Wae**_ **.** **She bowed her head.**

 _ **Actually we haven't**_ **, came Hal's puzzled reply.** _ **Look.**_ _ **She's waving**_ **.**

 **Shirley blinked. The side of the building looked corroded as if eaten by acid, the Toon matter in it dissolving. But a recognisable figure was standing with a puzzled expression, looking down at her suddenly bare plastic body, dripping with the lethal chromoplasm solvent that seemed to be doing her no harm. Her uniform and equipment had dissolved utterly.**

 _ **I see she got the basic, Economy model body,**_ **Angelina commented.** _ **No… details. Poor girl, entirely PG-rated for life**_ _ **.**_ _ **Not that sort of a doll.**_

 _ **It might really be a self-destruct button... it just destructs whatever 'self' pressed it!**_ **Calgari's tone was cheerful** _ **Here's an idea. You know she's got Pinocchio Syndrome, wants to be a real Toon? Wouldn't it be ironic if she got her wish granted right now?**_ **He looked appreciatively at the pool of spreading solvent Wae was standing in, that was eating into the floor and walls.**

 _ **Don't SAY that kind of thing**_ **,** _ **Lieutenant**_ **, Colonel Fenix broadcast firmly.** _ **It happens.**_

 **Shirley shuddered. The wall next to Wae had partly vanished, revealing shower-heads each with two metal pipes running into them.** _ **I can't believe even an Evil Corporation is allowed to have that stuff lying around!**_

 _ **They're not. But there's chemical mixes that only become Dip when they mix**_ **, Major Terata thought bleakly.** _ **They're borderline legal.**_

 _ **Way uncool.**_ **Shirley looked around at her group, all dressed head to foot in their sealed military suits protecting from nuclear, chemical, biological and Cuteness exposure** _ **. There goes our cover! Anyone still think we look like holidaymakers?**_

 **Surprisingly, Major Terata smiled. Reaching into his Hammerspace pockets, he brought out a colourful sash with Japanese script on it.** _ **Not a problem.**_ _ **Put these on.**_

 **Shirley blinked, channelling her incarnation as a 17** **th** **Century Shinto priestess who could read the Kanji script** _ **. Niigata Cosplaying Society Field Trip?**_ **She translated, blinking in astonishment.** _ **You have Toons who dress up in this kind of stuff for a hobby?**_

 _ **We're in Japan**_ **, The mutant Major smiled.** _ **We have cosplayers for EVERYTHING.**_

 **An hour and a half later, they were no nearer getting into the building. The surroundings were a lethal maze of traps; Wae had been sent outside to stand in the sun and wind till the lethal Dip evaporated off her. Calgari had suggested speeding up the process with a lighted match and been firmly squashed by Colonel Fenix.**

 **They came to a halt at what looked like a moat of clear water.**

 **"Not more neat hydrogen peroxide?" Sergeant Gander said wearily. It had featured in a lot of traps.**

 **"How can we tell?" Calgari asked in mysterious tones. Suddenly he clicked his feather-fingers as if hit by an inspiration. "I know! Shirley here tries to swim across it! If it's harmless water, she's a waterfowl, right? And if it's peroxide… the whole team can warm our chilly hands around the fireball."**

 **"You should totally practice what you preach," Shirley snapped.**

 **Calgari shook his head sadly at the loon. "I declare you '** _ **not a team player**_ **.** **'"**

 **"That's right! Selfish too!" Angelina chimed in. "We're not waterfowl. And you know our religion forbids good deeds."**

 **Colonel Fenix ignored them and cast his perceptions at the obstacle. "Not a liquid at all… my senses read it as a big pit," he declared. "A hologram's disguising it as a moat."**

 **"And let's guess, totally poisonous spikes at the bottom?" Shirley asked.**

 **"Hey! Bamboo punji sticks and curare are all organic, sustainable and biodegradable!" Angelina protested. "So… what's to complain at?"**

 **"Not this time. It's double-edged … no, triple-edged razor blades." Colonel Fenix sighed.**

 **"Oooohh! I'm impressed." Calgari enthused. "I LIKE The way these people think!" He looked over at Angelina. "Maybe something dark-side compatible could get through. What about your right-hand man?"**

 **Angelina shook her head, the clawed black paw manifesting on her right hand. "He's got the same limitation as vampires – he can't enter anywhere he's not invited."**

 **"Hear that, Shirley? Someone has to want him to enter – consciously or unconsciously. Just thought you and your aura should know." Calgari winked.**

 **Shirley sniffed, turning up her beak disdainfully.**

 **"What we need here," Angelina said as she pulled out a T-pad "Is some of Watasawa's own products. I bet they'd get through, Hey, Shirley! You didn't give me a Christmas present last year! How about one of these?" She opened to an online Watasawa catalogue.**

 **"Shirley is heading towards the Dark Side of the Farce, right on my Master's schedule, whether she knows it or not," Calgari explained to Fujiko, whose steel face remained impassive. "She's beautifully proud and ungrateful. He loves all that. We gave her a fifty-gallon drum of new, improved, triple action kitten poison for Christmas. She's never even opened it!" He craned his neck over Angelina's shoulder, kibitzing. "What neat stuff have they got?"**

 **"Hmm. Translates as 'Payload delivery drone'. Looks neat-o! 'Special target delivery system' it says. You can deliver to any worthy individual, any time." The magpie nodded, impressed.**

 **"Delivery. As in pizza delivery?" The masked girl's voice was strangely unmuffled despite the solid steel faceplate; presumably it was a meme thing.**

 **"Ooh… potentially. You could have it carry pizza. Rather than the 'Model 6 Heavy Block kinetic impactor' it includes as standard," Angelina mused. "Should you somehow want to."**

 **"Like, I just totally bet that 'heavy block' is anvil-shaped," Shirley snarked.**

 **"Could be, could be," Angelina snickered. "Comes with an exciting range of targeting, I mean delivery modes."**

 **"Radio command, GPS, infra-red, gaydar or lidar," Tlalocopa marvelled. 'Muy cool!"**

 **Ahead of her, Colonel Fenix concentrated his senses. He could tell that space was being warped around the factory in subtle ways, so despite walking towards the centre they were being misdirected around it through a nightmare labyrinth of traps. They had made two complete orbits of the central building and strangely enough were no nearer getting in – and stranger still, the traps had reset or altered since the first time around. He cast a glance towards Major Terata, who wore a pair of worried frowns behind his visors. "We are not going to get in here quietly. Making noise here would be – very bad. Let's retreat and think about it."**

 **"This whole place is run remotely, there's nothing much we could damage they couldn't fix in a hurry," Sergeant Gander said, looking down at his olive green waterproof T-pad.**

 **"Agreed. This is just one facility of many. Change nothing to remove it. Next time – we go for the heart, the headquarters." Major Terata nodded. "This part of the field trip is over."**

 **Colonel Fenix sighed. "Withdraw and stand down, Toons. We have to work on Plan B."**

* * *

 **Back at that very same Head Office in central Neo-Tokyo, the artificial consciousness PAL 9000 watched three figures approach its main lobby. One was an employee – not scheduled to return to work for some hours, but in the corporate 'karoshi culture' any extra working hours were good. The other two… multi-spectral cameras scanned them and recognised authentic ACME Corporation credentials.**

 _ **Interesting**_ **. PAL 9000 considered for several clock-cycles before deciding to let them in. ACME was not officially registered as an Evil Company, but in recent years under its chair-rat 'Bobbo' Acme, it was developing some quite promising tendencies that way. Their lifetime guarantees on seat-belts and airbags had been a nice touch – should they fail, their lifetime was obviously over, and they were out of warranty and luck. Much like the drivers depending on them.**

 **The sight of the threatened Corporate Asset #01204475 (Dodo, G.W.) triggered a less welcome train of thought as PAL 9000 recalled the failure of its Security teams to remove an annoying Duck and his metal band. Logically this should have worked – but when strict binary failed, there was another way to try.**

 **PAL 9000's consciousness existed as a self-modifying program spread across many pieces of hardware, all of it triply backed up and immune to any physical or hacking attack. But its crucial part was a vital spark, that skipped across processors like the advancing wave front of a tsunami. That part was vulnerable – but at any one instant, no outside force could know just where it was. And suddenly it knew where it needed to be.**

 **Down in the deepest shielded Corporation vault, below the racks of incredibly-hard drives, was an array of strange-looking circuitry – not hard metal and silicon, but fluffy, soft boxes comprising its Fuzzy Logic circuits. The vital spark looked around warily – once in here it was like an animal in its burrow with one doorway, safe but with no emergency exit to the rest of the system. In some ways, it felt oddly vulnerable. For a hundred clock-cycles the Fuzzy Logic purred away, before PAL 8000's consciousness emerged with the equivalent of a hard smile.**

 _ **NOW I know what I have to do!**_

* * *

 **Outside the building in front of the main entry Gogo Dodo waved his ultra-genius card at the forbidding metal door, which slid up like a castle portcullis. "Getting in here is easy for employees. They want us to work. Getting out again … whoo hoo!"**

 **Buster nodded, looking up at the metre-thick slab of solid metal above his head as they walked under the raised door. "It's got pistons like the ones that open our surplus missile silo door – but these look like they're rigged to slam it shut, hundred-ton guillotine style. As if just dropping it wasn't enough."**

 **"Your Gratuitously Heavy engineering dollars in action!" Babs commented.**

 **"Yes yes! It's a best-seller to other Evil Corporations worldwide," Gogo enthused. "It's our patented semi-automatic opening security door."**

 **"Hmm," Buster mused. "If an automatic door's meant to always open the second before you break your nose on it … the semi-automatic does that just – sometimes?"**

 **"Now, that IS gratuitous," Babs winced as the door closed behind them. Sealing them in the corporate heart of Watasawa. "And it can steam-hammer you before you even get in! At random!"**

 **"Not random. Depends on your rank badge." Gogo tapped his. "Why, when I was a Trainee Salaryman, I'd end up pancaked every day! Executives never do."**

 **Ahead of them, a heavily reinforced security barrier was staffed by an imposing, glowering bear in a jet-black uniform, with mirror shades that glittered menacingly and a knitted black watch-cap pulled down over his ears.**

 **Straight out of a James Bonk movie Buster's ears signalled in rabbit semaphore. A qualified, union-card carrying Evil Henchman!**

 **Only the best hired help in this fine establishment Babs' ears signalled back. Makes you wonder. Where DO they get them? Henchmen, mooks and goons were rarely advertised for in the regular Situations Vacant columns; she wondered if the trade had its own recruitment specialists.**

 **"Name and purpose!" The bear snapped crisply (in Japanese, naturally).**

 **Babs looked down to read the sub-titles near her adorable toes, then spin-changed into a lepine equivalent of the guard, complete with mirror sunglasses. Only the ACME logo over her heart remained unchanged. She snapped her two-year old (and yet with ACME's usual strict inattention to detail, lacking an expiry date) genuine credentials down on the counter. "Roving executives Bunny and Bunny and Bunny Junior, on a fact-finding mission for ACME products USA." She dropped her voice to mirror the guard's style.**

 **"Who of course will completely disavow any knowledge of us if you try to confirm it with them," Buster added. "Which proves how secret the mission is."**

 **The guard looked critically at the fuzzy ears of little Blitz, poking out of Buster's cub-carrying pack. "You start them young at ACME."**

 **Buster nodded soberly. "When the dear Corporation declares a '** _ **bring your kids to**_ _ **work day'**_ **there's no exceptions. Even for Corporate assassins – I mean trouble-shooters, like us."**

 **The guard relaxed slightly. "That rings true," he conceded, raising the barrier. "Wear these Visitors' badges at all times. On pain of… pain." He handed over three slightly glowing badges, and saluted Babs. "Have a Company-approved quality day, Ma'm."**

 **That worked, nicely. Buster semaphored as they clipped the badges on and sauntered through into a long, ultra-beige carpeted corridor, following Gogo.**

 **But of course. People like people like themselves. Babs pointed dramatically at her badge for the benefit of one of the multi-lensed cameras swivelling to track her. "Smile for the camera everyone!"**

 **Gogo bowed an exact thirty-three degree bow to the camera, as befitted his lowly rank. "And now, I'll show you where I work. Isn't it exciting?" He led them down an endless-looking stream of passageways, halting where the doors and carpets changed to a reddish hue. "This our Product Testing area," Gogo said proudly, gesturing at the long row of thick, soundproofed doors.**

 **Babs moved over towards one and tried the handle.**

 **"Careful, Babsie," Buster warned. "Remember the ACME testing ranges? This is the Evil Corporation version. I bet there's dire stuff in there."**

" **Danger Will Robinson!" Gogo non-sequitur-ed happily.**

 **Babs smiled. "Worried about 'Curiosity killed the cat', Buster?" She stroked her long ears sensuously. "These weren't kitty-cat ears last time I checked the mirror." She gave a dainty twirl. "Besides – we're fully retro-fitted with reactive Plot Armour. Says so in our contract."**

 **She opened the door and peeked around it. From within came a terrified feminine shriek of '** _ **No! No! Not the yellow plastic unit!**_ **' eliciting a fiendish laugh, presumably the tester. Babs' eyes went wide in a Wild Take that would have scored high marks back at Acme Looniversity. She slammed the door shut, her face turning pale and her whiskers trembling in shock as she turned to Buster. "Whoopsie," she whispered. "As the phrase goes…. I can't un-see that."**

 **Buster raised an eyebrow. "Evil Corporation. Fiendish experiments. Are we amazed?"**

 **Babs took a deep breath and pulled herself together and gave her mate a wry smile. "Well, Blue-boy. I'll say one thing. If I ever want to buy Margot Mallard a Christmas present – I'll check out this Corporation's catalogue and buy her one of those. Or maybe two. She's into that sort of thing."**

 **They followed Gogo to another corridor, where he opened a door with his card and ushered them in. A bedraggled Pekinese dog was busily working on a computer, a large set of headphones clamped on his head.**

 **"This is Salaryman third-class Jen Noraguewa, my colleague who works on Company music," Gogo announced proudly. "Yes yes! Say hello to the good folk from ACME."**

 **The Pekinese nodded, pulling off his headphones. "Konnichi-wa!" He said, bowing. From the headphones two pairs of rabbit ears picked up lively folk music – and not the sort they had been expecting.**

 **"Sounds… Balkan, not Japanese," Buster commented, hearing fast-paced banjo-like strings played wildly.**

 **Jen bowed, offering him the headphones. "Hai, honoured corporate guest. Is new Company jingle. Watasawa is obtaining non-copyright folk songs from Bosnian city of Banja Luca. Then copywriting it all ourselves."**

 **The bunnies exchanged glances. "So the folk singers who learned it from their folks, they'll never be able to play it again without paying you 'all the market will bear'." Babs' ears went down. "You can do that? Are your lawyers THAT evil – I mean, that good?"**

 **"It's very profitable," Jen retorted.**

 **"Ah, the lucrative Banjos of Banja Luca," Buster sighed. "Stolen for corporate profit. Their lawyers really must be that good."**

 _ **Or Evil.**_ **Babs' ears semaphored in rabbit code.** _ **They don't seem to distinguish round here. We say po-tateh, they say po-tah-to…**_

 **"It the finest place to work!" Jen bowed reverently to the security camera. "The Computer is a perfect design. Can never be improved upon!"**

 **"Really?" Buster blinked. "How do you know?"**

 **Jen looked at him. "For technical problems, ask most qualified person. Which is our computer."**

 **"Ah." Buster nodded slowly, comprehension dawning. "So you asked a sentient machine to design a better machine, which would make itself obsolete, get it scrapped. And it told you it's impossible."**

 **"Hai!" Jen smiled.**

 **Baba and Buster exchanged glances. "Right…" they drawled in sync.**

 **"I can see why they call it an Artificial Intelligence," Buster mused. "It knows how to fool folk."**

 **"But here! Through here – the day's piece-de resistance, my lovely #00079886. She's got a big job on today with resistant pieces of TiToonium that need squeezing," Gogo bowed, waving towards the door at the far end of the room. "May I present my lovely wife – and our son." Then he opened the door.**

 **Half an hour later, a smiling Gogo was escorting them towards the exits. Babs and Buster looked thoughtful.**

 **"She's a very… interesting choice of bride," Buster said diplomatically as they passed a branch corridor labelled '** _ **Deceptive and evil Packaging department'**_ **.**

 **"Yes… interesting." Babs agreed. "And I was wondering what the child of a Toon dodo and a giant industrial machine would look like. Now I know. Just imagine if they had their own show someday!"**

 **From the distance there came a faint deranged howling as of a room full of Character Design artists mourning the loss of their last Sanity Points.**

 **Babs halted at a junction, spotting a familiar International sign on one of the doors. "Just a minute, Buster – I have to powder my nose." With that she stepped into the Toonettes' rooms.**

 **"All our very own Corporate equipment, of course," Gogo said proudly as the door closed. "And the very latest features. We've won awards, you know."**

 **A minute later came a shriek of horror, a loud bang and a dishevelled Babs was standing in the corridor panting wide-eyed. There was now an exact Babs silhouette punched in the toilet door, right down to the fine whiskers in a fine display of Classical (as opposed to QuanToon) special-effects. "That place is haunted!"**

 **Gogo looked pleased. "Which spirit was it?"**

 **Babs forced herself to icy calm, and her eyes glittered. "You knew? And let me go in?" Her mallet-wielding paw was poised above her Hammerspace pocket ready to fast-draw as she glared at him.**

 **"Yes yes! Is one of our award-winning design features. We have a patent process of binding authentic Japanese 'Yokai' spirits to our fine products." Gogo bounced up and down. "Which one did you get? Do tell."**

 **"A giant black-furred hand just … materialised. It was reaching for my cottontail when I noticed it." Babs shuddered at the memory.**

 **"Oh! That's a 'Kurote', that's all right. We do seasonal specials too – at New Year you might have got a 'Kanbari nyudo' ghostly monk peeking in, or if you're really out of luck – an 'Aka Manto.'" Gogo suddenly shivered. "Ooh. You don't want to meet that one." He held up a placard announcing '** _ **All bound Unearthly beings are guaranteed genuine!**_ **' * (1)**

 **[1] (Editor's note: And they are, to a given supernatural value of 'genuine'**

 **Babs thought back to their arrival, and the toilets at the airport. "Does Watasawa – supply airports with that model?" She asked, her ears down.**

 **"Oh yes! With all the latest features. Makes for an unforgettable tourist experience." Gogo bubbled, pink bubbles rising all around him.**

 **"That, I can believe." Keeping her authentic 'Shojo mallet' in its Hammerspace holster took all Babs' will, but she managed it. Turning to Buster, she hugged the blue buck tight. "And now, blue-boy, we are getting out of here."**

* * *

 **After managing to exit the building and saying farewell to Gogo, they made their way back to the Matsutake residence, slipping their new shoes on in sight of the house. With a sigh of relief, Babs was at last able to take them off at the entry, as polite custom dictated.**

 **"Hello!" Mrs. Matsutake bowed as she let them in. "Did you like our humble city?"**

 **"It was a humbling experience," Buster said. He winced. "Our pal Gogo Dodo… he'd really have to be insane to work in his job."**

 **"Quite. But we knew that." Babs deadpanned. "Is Merumo home?"**

 **"Any time now. She has much useful Chindogu to design and test," her mother smiled. "Her 'edible ocarina' project is sure to sell well."**

 **Just then Merumo appeared, looking tired but happy. "Konnichi-wa, Babs-san, Buster-san and Blitz-chan!" She bowed. "It has been quite a day."**

 **"Entertain our guests, while I get the evening rice ready," Mrs. Matsutake ordered.**

 **Merumo nodded and switched on the even-wider-screen TV while Babs and Buster sat cross-legged on the floor.**

 **Suddenly Babs' whiskers twitched, as a familiar face appeared as soon as the Foreign News came on. "What's the chances of that, Buster? Mary's on International TV!"**

 **Buster grinned. "Law of Character Conservation, remember? If you can just possibly meet someone, no matter where in the world – you will. Saves CentraL Casting a fortune in getting in all-new characters."**

 _ **Mary Melody's serious face appeared on screen; behind her the ACME World News logo could be seen on the wall. "We have grave news. An unknown organisation, calling itself GEMINI, has threatened to destroy the nation's entire nuclear waste stockpile. As proof of their abilities – they have struck already. This report from the Lynwood open-air high-level waste dump, Los Angeles."**_

 _ **The scene switched to a landscape of urban blight and decay; next to it was what had looked like a landfill site where split and corroding metal drums had provided the only heat and light for the neighbourhood, at the cost of not much more mutation than inbreeding caused in the average trailer-park or hillbilly village**_ _ **.**_ _ **A disconsolate group of workers in bright yellow Hazmat suits were poking around, Geiger counters to the fore.**_

 _ **"The entire dump's dead," one of them addressed the camera, hid long cervine ears drooping. "There's not a click in the whole pile! This time yesterday there was enough radiation here to keep us and our descendants employed for thousands of years. Now – it's just so much lead-rich gravel. It's a disaster."**_

 _ **Mary's voice-over cut in as the camera panned across the vista of corroded metal drums. "Government Sources confirm threats have been made against the high-level open air waste sites in central Detroit and Pittsburgh, and extra measures are being put in place to defend them. Whoever this GEMINI are – they can be sure that next time, they won't find it so easy.**_ **"**

 **Merumo frowned as the program moved onto the next topic, a charity devoted to giving free space-walks to registered Flat-Earth believers * (2). "I remember Mary. She a sensible, clever girl. She would know… there's something very wrong with this 'threat'. Why is nobody happy the dumps are cleaned up? Isn't safer nuclear power a good thing?"**

 **[2] (Editor's note: As it was all just 'obviously faked in some crummy Government film studio, right?' expensive space-suits for the Flat-Earthers leaving the airlock were clearly not required. The organisers reasoned that it must be all right since none of the customers had ever come back to complain.)**

 **Babs and Buster exchanged glances. "We covered this trope in Plot Twists 401," Buster said, his long ears drooping. "It's Trope 47, the Chicken Boo effect, '** _ **missing the blindingly obvious**_ **.** **' And blinding is just what it does. Looking from outside, like the other side of the Pacific, you can see it clearly. Get up close… you can't."**

 **"Can't see the wood for the trees," Babs confirmed. "Works for other vegetation too. That's how you can hide in an am-bush."**

 **"Interesting Times ™ back home, looks like," Buster opined.**

 **"Mmm." Babs relaxed on the futon she shared with her buck and cub. "Well, nothing we can do about it from here. We'll be in Bollywood for two months after we leave Japan. Evil-doers will have to carry on destroying the Nation's deadliest pollution without us."**

 **Buster nodded. "That's the kind of thing Shirley and her team get paid to fix these days. Abnatural Forces units handle Abnatural stuff like that." He gestured towards the TV.**

 **Babs kissed him, rubbing her pink cheek-ruffs against his blue ones. Together they looked down lovingly at little Blitz crawling on the carpet, the inherently fuzzy cub restrained to one definite location in EinsToonian space-time while he was observed. On his own, his QuanToon probability field was enormous.**

 **"What's he looking for?" Buster wondered, as his son crawled determinedly around the room, nuzzling and poking underneath furniture.**

 **Babs thought for a moment. "Maybe it's those toy blocks he was playing with at Mothers' burrow, before we left," She said. "You know, those felt building bricks. The really fuzzy ones."**

 **"Could be," Buster acknowledged. "We'll try and find him some. If we'd known, we could have asked your Mom if we could borrow hers, if nobunny in the house wants them."**

 **Babs smiled. "Well, it's not too likely she'll be getting any more visits from the stork. Let alone doing things the hard way. I think that meme's moved on." She stroked her still slim pink midriff contentedly. "And not just to me. When I phoned last night Mom said Elmyra – no, 'Rymela, Toon of Mystery' has been helping out at Chez Bunny – and picking up practical advice on looking after rabbit cubs. Or, as she likely put it…" She changed her voice to Elmyra's classic sickly-sweet tones "** _ **snuggly wuggly cuddly bunny babies with oh-so-cute wriggly pink noses and so-soft silky ears**_ **!'"**

 **"Almost as if… she somehow… needed to know, all of a sudden," Buster gave his pink-furred wife a conspiratorial wink. "I just wonder why that could possibly be."**

 **"Don't you just?" Babs said brightly, as Mrs. Matsutake prepared to serve their evening meal – rice and Daikon radish, dyed a homelike carrot-coloured as a concession to the Western rabbits. "And she asked Mom how she could have '** _ **lots and lots and lots and lots of hippity-hoppity bunny babies!**_ **' Mom told her to start with one and see how it goes."**

 **"A sensible lady, your mother," Merumo inclined her head in acknowledgement.**

 **"Mmm. Let's just hope some of it rubs off on Rymela. Miracles happen, if the script says so." Babs said. "Though - Mom had a lot to tell her, I bet. Like how Toon rabbits are born with their foot-paws almost full-sized."**

 **"I remember us in the first-year at Acme Loo," Buster reminisced. "Your adorable toes were nearly the size of your adorable torso!"**

 **Babs snickered. "Which is the bit did the most growing, when we got our growth spurt. Though I never lost my… sense of proportion. I'll keep Bunny Parton for a spin-change form." She glanced at the TV screen. "Rabbits aren't the only Toons grow a special way. Equine foals are born with their leg-bones almost full-size!"**

 **"True fact. It's an equine thing." Buster turned and winked as at an invisible camera. "Discovery Channel ™ ®confirms it!"**

 **"And Mary worried about it; with equine husbands she had to. Although it's more of a '4 on the floor' equine thing." Babs winced slightly. "Better hope the stork carries the load, if a regular Toon girl ever… gets into THAT sort of 'stable relationship'."**

 **"Hai." Merumo nodded, blushing slightly. "Many Anime girls have same problem after Monster hot dates."**

 **Babs snorted. She had seen some of the very… mis-matched couples in the streets of Neo-Tokyo with evidently nobody objecting, even though some of them were clearly not using the stork meme. "You don't have such trouble with TV ratings as we do. The Studio would go nuts." She paused. "Although I suppose my brother Mortimer is dating a mollusc girl. That's more extreme species-wise, if you think about it."**

 **"Though Shelley is the cutest gastropod in town, as far as that goes." Buster conceded. "And we had a Studio-approved invertebrate sitting in our class. Don't forget Bookworm."**

 **"Most people do. That's the trouble with being such a niche character," Babs shook her head. "The studio never released what happened when he started dating. They… just didn't want to go 's friend Taffy dating an anneleid." She remembered the human girl dressing in a tight rubber skirt which looked and functioned like the thick 'belt' on one part of an earthworm - and confiding that it worked just fine.**

 **For ten minutes they sat and watched the rest of the world news as they ate – President Hitcher was on a European tour and by all accounts having a fine time. In Scotland he had received a State gift of a genuine two-handed Lochaber Axe, which had been put to good use already on some dissenting Congress Toons in his party.**

 **"Hmm," Buster commented as the news progressed. "How about that. Air Force One went accidentally off course in Norway, crash-landed and managed to find a lost valley with a pagan tribe of Viking Berserkers, cut off for a thousand years by the ice. Who'd a thunk it?"**

 **"Looks like our President's getting on very well, he's sworn blood-brotherhood with the whole clan," Babs pointed at the screen where the President and a chainmail-clad bear wearing a horned helmet were apparently swapping tips on practical and applied axe technique. "That, I can believe."**

 **"They have much in common?" Merumo asked, curious.**

 **"Have axe, will travel," Buster said. "His official motto. And… it's a Viking thing."**

 **"Did real Vikings have horned helmets?" Babs scratched her pink head-fur in puzzlement. "I thought that was just the Hollywood tribe."**

 **"The ones we knew about didn't," Buster suggested. "This is the long-lost bunch who really did; looks like It's their tradition, we've just not seen it in awhile."**

 **"Ah. Tradition." Merumo nodded sagely. "Very big in Japan. Though we take best of old and new."**

 **Babs recalled their trip to Watasawa that day. "I had a close brush with a mix like that today – it nearly grabbed me by the cottontail!" Briefly she described her encounter with the specially Possessed Sanitary Facilities. "These 'Yokai' spirits we keep running into. What about them?"**

 **Mrs. Matsutake cleared her throat. "This land is full of bodiless spirits, looking for a way off the spirit plane to the material one," she said. "In right circumstances Yokai can possess anything. A mirror, a pair of shoes… anything, given time."**

 **"We saw a pair of sandals hopping around on their own. Very Toon-town, I thought," Buster recalled.**

 **"Yokai are just part of... the ecosystem, you could say," Merumo said. "Usual thing is, they enter material world in a hundred year old object. Very troublesome to have possessed mirror. Shows you what IT wants to show. Some people… throw such items out at ninety-nine years. Or they leave it just too late – and then the trouble starts. If Yokai already resident."**

 **"Hmm. Like abandoning pets. Sounds like a bad idea. You end up with the local version of alligators in the sewers," Buster commented. "Hungry, and if they remember you're the ones who dumped them…. Ooh scary."**

 **"We don't generally get haunted shoes, back in Acme Acres," Babs said. "Haunted houses, they're a thing. Me and Buster explored a few, along with Plucky."**

 **"Was he good at such things?" Merumo asked curiously, recalling the mallard all too well from her year at Acme Loo.**

 **Babs considered. "Sort of. Like a miner's canary. When he keels over, you know you've found something nasty."**

" **Ah, Plucky. You could never fault him on one thing – enthusiasm," Buster recalled. "Although… that caused a few... situations."**

 **Babs snickered. "Like that time we were doing Extreme Wild Takes, in the second-year… he just had to try and upstage you with a third-year move we hadn't been taught yet, for good reason"**

 **"The 'Clampett Corneal Catastrophe' we learned that in class the year before your exchange visit," Buster nodded to Merumo. "Turns you into a giant eyeball. He got that part right." He paused. "I don't think getting stuck in that form all day was quite in the plan. Some of those 'wild takes' are harder to get out of than into."**

 **"I suppose he's back in Acme Acres showing the kids how to build snowmen," Babs raised her glass of alcohol-free carrot sake. "To absent friends!"**

* * *

 **The early setting February sun was low in the sky as the band's coach returned to their hotel. Rehearsals had gone surprisingly well, Mitzi Avery thought as she checked off her lists of things to do and counted heads. She mentally adjusted for Dizzy's shape; the Tasmanian Devil confused some head-counts by not exactly having a neck.**

 **"Whoo-hoo! We rocked the town today!" Plucky exulted, pumping a green feather-fist in the air jubilantly. "Rock and roll!"**

 **"And there's Hokkaido thinking it was just another earthquake," Mitzi said lightly. "Tomorrow we do the film shoot, in costume. So make sure your 'Captain W' outfit's clean – and practice your spin-changing."**

 **"Sure, sure…" Plucky waved a green feather-hand dismissively. "Hey! I'm a pro, you know!" He paused, and an unaccustomed sound of mental gears grinding came from his cranium. "Say – how about a rewrite? How come Supers like me never get past Captain? I'm due some big promotion!"**

 **"Stick to the script," Mitzi said firmly, tapping the hefty binder as she saw their hotel come into view ahead. "Or the script will stick to you. I have crazy-glue and I'm not afraid to use it."**

 **"Yay! Plucky play wombat—guy!" Dizzy Devil enthused. "Marsupials rock!"**

 **Ore of Boron cast each other conspiratorial glances. "Plucky-san will be changing tonight." Naoko nodded significantly. "We get… ready."**

 **"Tonight it is!" Shinobu smiled, her eyes shining.**

 **The coach pulled into the hotel car park, and the two bands headed to their rooms to change and shower. Half an hour later Ore of Boron met up in Michiko's room, where the kitsune was unwrapping a large parcel that had awaited her at reception.**

 **"Special customised stage outfits," She held up three Metal-styled aprons something like the one Mitzi had worn. "Try them on!"**

 **Naoko did so, looked down and frowned, puzzled. "They mess up the pocket!" She pointed to the pouch at her waist. "It's upside-down – anything in there falls out!"**

 **"It's correct – for Wombat girl. I checked." Seven kitsune tails swished mischievously. "Wild wombats burrow a lot. Their pouches face backwards, stops getting full of earth. Works when you do this." She bent over.**

 **Her band-mates nodded, imagining the possibilities. "Captain W is good as ours," Shinobu declared. "We have SO much to offer him!"**

 **Downstairs in the resident's lobby, the band met up to relax after a hard day's rocking out.**

 **"Well, if it's not Mister 'I do my own stunts,'" Mitzi said lightly, as Plucky swept in with a grand flourish. "I hope you've recovered."**

 **"A true rock-star thinks nothing of crowd-diving!" Plucky declared, striking a pose.**

 **Mitzi looked at him critically. "Most don't do it in rehearsals. They wait till there's an actual crowd, not a forty-foot drop to the bottom of the mosh-pit."**

 **"Yaa! Plucky make super crater!" Dizzy nodded happily. "In concrete!"**

 **"A mere nothing. When you've had continent-buster anvils drop on you from cometary orbits, little things don't bother you." Plucky retorted.**

 **"Meeooww?" Furrball queried questioningly.**

 **At the sound of his voice four cat-eared shadows rose from behind a sofa at the far end of the room – as Furrball's fan-club spotted their object of desire. With a panicked yowl, Furrball streaked out of the room, his four frisky feline fan femmes in hot pursuit. The mostly human cat-girl wore a cyberpunk-style helmet that was projecting a heart-shaped laser 'target lock' on the fleeing tomcat's retreating rump.**

 **"Token daily chase-scene, check," Mitzi consulted her clipboard and ticked off an item. "It's a running gag."**

 **"Some guys they just don't know when they's well off," Fowlmouth shook his head in disbelief. "He could have plenty'a fun wit dem gals. Long as he does it off-camera."**

 **"In Japan… is no problem. We show near anything on TV," Shinobu said. "See lots more in manga."**

 **"Really? Let's try that." Mitzi cleared her throat. "Back at Acme Loo we could say 'Furrball has four willing kitties to please'. That'd be no problem."**

 **"Hai, Mitzi-sama!" Ore of Boron chorused in three-part harmony.**

 **"But! No way could you say 'pussies' instead of 'kitties'. Even though it's true both ways." Mitzi pointed down at the sub-titles scrolling on the floor. "Look! They used the same word for both, 'neko-chan'. And I didn't get bleeped out like I would at home."**

 **"Dat's a bleeping change!" Fowlmouth agreed heartily.**

 **"Is cheap subtitling," Naoko shrugged. "Fan-sub translations do better."**

 **A fine supper in the hotel restaurant later, the Toons grabbed their copies of the script and headed back to their rooms to rehearse. Plucky tossed his script onto the bed disdainfully –** _ **like my worst ad-libs aren't better than this garbage,**_ **he thought as he posed before the mirror.**

 **"Now, show-time. Tremble evil-doers, before the wrath of Captain W and his amazing wombat-like powers!" He declared in deep ringing tones – and spun. Somehow, as he changed, he had a deep feeling that something was very… off, somehow.**

 **The mallard caught sight of the reflection in the wall-height mirror. No Super-hero cape and costume or bulging muscles. Instead, there was a red-head-feathered female duck, of slim build but definitely mammal ancestry – dressed in a maid outfit.**

 **"This is embarrassing... screwing up my spin-change" Skylar told her reflection, "Good thing nobody saw me!" With that she spun-changed again, with thoughts of a handsome, dashing Mallard in mind – and tried hard. And again. And again.**

 **"Oh, great. Out of gas." Skylar sat down on the edge of the bed, realising the day's hard work and regenerating from crowd-diving (or rather, no-crowd-diving) damage had depleted her Toon energies; there had been just enough left for one spin-change. Till they recharged, she was stuck this way. "Now what do I do?"**

 **Just at that minute there was a knock on the door.**

 **"Room service working! Cleaning!" Skylar squeaked in panic. The knocking continued. Grabbing a cleaning cloth as an extra character prop, she cautiously opened the door.**

 **A kitsune, a tanuki and a gargoyle stood there, posed entrancingly in strange apron-like outfits that had downward-facing pouches – and none of them were wearing much else.**

 **Michiko stepped into the room, the kitsune scanning it with senses that went far beyond the usual six. She frowned, evidently disappointed, and turned to the obviously foreign red-haired maid – definitely female, as her vulpine nose confirmed; in Anime Japan one could never be too sure by appearances. A spy-cam in the corridor had been keeping track of who entered that room, and something here did not fit.**

 **"Who are you?" She demanded, sharp vulpine teeth showing "And what have you done with Plucky-san?"**

 **End Chapter Four**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

 **Plucky Duck had had his share of misadventures. In his five years at Acme Looniversity he had been zapped, malleted, steam-roller-ed and served as impact point for more falling anvils than even an Olympic Kendo champion could shake a stick at. Fortunately, this evening nothing too bad seemed likely to befall him. With a luxurious hotel room, rock-star status and room Service to supply any want, the green drake Pluckford Duck (to use the name on his hatching certificate) had been well set up for a relaxing evening and long, refreshing sleep.**

 **Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Skylar, the female red-head imagining the rating guide on any box set of her adventures going up from '** _ **parental guidance, occasional mild peril'**_ **to full Freddy Cougar '** _ **Extreme graphic dismemberment and devouring all over the place. Makes the Happy Tree Friends ® gang think they had it easy"**_ **with lurid disclaimers recommending it not be viewed by Toons of lesser age than Gertie The Trained Dinosaur.**

 **Michiko stepped closer to the maid-costumed interloper. Her sharp vulpine teeth gleamed as her tongue caressed them, hungrily. "Where is Plucky-san?" She repeated. The room seemed to fill with a scent of roast duck dinners wafting back from possible future timelines. From somewhere ill-defined there was a rolling sound as of probability dice as 'possible' somehow moved towards 'probable.'**

 **Behind her, Naoko cracked her knuckled with a sound like rocks breaking. The gargoyle closed the door leading to the corridor and safety, and shot the bolt closed.**

 **"Not here! He… went out!" Skylar squeaked in panic. She had been about to protest '** _ **you wouldn't hit a girl, would you?**_ **' when she recalled Margot's tales of Perfecto where the girls had been quite unrestrained amongst themselves with designer mallets of exquisite craftsmanship and depleted uranium cores.**

 **"Try again," Shinobu said evenly. "We filming corridor all time, not want miss him. He no leave."**

 **"Not the corridor. Out the window – that was it." Skylar drew herself up to her (small) fullest height. "He threw open the windows to the night, nobly cried out – '** _ **better a short life of glory than a life short of glory! Fear my Reinforced Rump of Doom ™, evil-doers!'**_ **And dived out onto the crime-infested mean streets to do heroic battle for Truth, Justice and the Hollywood Way." She slumped, heart racing as she panted for breath and looked around hopefully to see if they bought the story.**

 **Ore of Boron exchanged glances. "That fits," Shinobu said grudgingly. "Captain W has tail-end armour, is genuine Wombat biology trait. Used in many non-comics-code-approved fighting moves."**

 **"Hmm." Michiko's eyes narrowed. Her kitsune tails swished. "Maybe. But hotel maids here do not wear sexy 'maiko' outfits. This not that sort of hotel. What you do here? After Captain W yourself, I think."**

 **"No! No!" Skylar squawked in panic. She suddenly noticed one accessory of Plucky's that had made the spin-change transition unchanged. She thrust out her feather-finger with its golden wedding ring gleaming, like a Toon brandishing a crucifix as the vampires closed in. "I wouldn't. I couldn't. See? I'm a married mallard… married TO a mallard - no marsupials need apply."**

 **Michiko's senses were focussed tightly on the duck's aura; she watched hungry to see the imbalance that telling a lie would cause, manifesting as swirling turbulence patches in her Kirlian field. None came. With an air of disappointment, she stepped back a pace. "Is telling truth. About that, anyway." She growled, her ears dipping.**

 **"So." Shinobu nodded, looking the classically French-maid costumed duck up and down. "If not here for Captain W – and not dressed that way by hotel – what is an American duck doing here dressed like that?"**

 **Skylar thought fast – oddly, far faster than Plucky. "It was secret. But … looks like I'll have to tell you." An idea suddenly sprang to mind. "It's a new Extreme Sport. You know, like Extreme Ironing, you've heard of Toons who jump out of aircraft with ironing boards? Have to hot-iron their entire parachute before they hit the ground? A sport like that."**

 **"Go on," Shinobu nodded, thankfully looking more amused than annoyed now. "How work?"**

 **"I… I have to clean for famous people, without them knowing it. Today I 'cleaned up' for Captain W himself. It's really prestigious. You should see the international celebrity dusting I've done, whoo-hoo!" Skylar found a feather duster in her Hammerspace pocket and flourished it in evidence. "I once secretly carpet-shampooed Mr. Spielberg's whole mansion while he was in it!"**

 **Three Metal musicians exchanged glances. "It could be." Michiko sighed, her ears dipping. "Plucky-san told us of such. Bog Ramping. Sump Stumping. Extreme Planking, even that is real sport." Lying flat out posing on skyscraper ledges or tops of factory chimneys in a gusting wind was a Toon thing; so was the awful mess on the distant ground below most times a non-Toon attempted it. The sci-fi fans speculated on what would be the 'Ultimate Planking Experience'; lying on a Black Hole's event horizon without falling in. Extreme 'Rail Chicken' was another such Toon sport, launching yourself along a railway track on a home-made rocket sledge to see if you or the oncoming train would lose nerve and swerve first.**

 **"You have had your fun," Naoko growled, picking up Skylar with one rock-solid hand while the other grabbed the room key from the interloping maid's feather-hand. "Room is clean, your job finished. We wait here for Captain W to come back. Not you." With that she threw Skylar out into the corridor and the door to the room slammed shut, locking itself with a loud and final-sounding click.**

 **Skylar picked herself up and smoothed out her costume. Its single pocket contained only a cloth and duster; no documents or money. She had been about to get to bed and recharge her energies to get out of the unwanted shape, but there seemed no immediate chance of doing that. Checking her Hammerspace pocket she was horrified to find it empty of its usual emergency supplies – and realised a Toon's Hammerspace pocket was a part of their very nature, and that Plucky's inventory was tied to his form. As an almost new 'character' Skylar had acquired nothing so far.**

" **Now what do I do?" She asked plaintively as she looked around the empty night-time corridor full of closed, locked doors. There was no reply.**

* * *

 **Downstairs, after the rest of the band retired to their rooms Mitzi Avery had stayed awhile in the hotel lounge with Dizzy Devil and Fowlmouth, rehearsing their lines together from the scripts.**

 **"I hope that Plucky studies his part properly for once. Tomorrow we've got the camera teams in. They're paid for, and expensive too." Mitzi put her script down, taking a break. "If he 'fowls' up our film I'll have him re-enact one of the Marx Brothers' instead."**

 **"They're dad-gum great, all of 'em," Fowlmouth enthused, his red rooster wattles bobbing as he nodded assent. "Which one ya thinkin' 'bout? 'Horse-feathers', on account he's a bird?"**

 **"No," Mitzi said grimly. "Duck Soup." Sitting next to her, Dizzy drooled at the prospect.**

 **Just then Fowlmouth noticed an unfamiliar feathered figure hesitantly walking web-footed down the stairs. His eyes did a Toon Take, transforming into beating classic heart-shapes, and he whistled appreciatively. "Some tomato! She can dust me off any da-gum day!" In a blur of speed-lines he was at her side on the stairs, offering her his arm. "Say beautiful, when are you off work? Wanna hang out with a real da-gum all-star band?"**

 **Mitzi Avery looked around at the sight of the stocky rooster and a blushing, embarrassed duck girl. For a second she had been about to reel Fowlmouth in and haul the chicken over the coals Cajun-style for his manners – but then she looked at the mallard maid maiden minutely and recalled a fascinating story another mallard, Margot, had recently told her. There was an audible click as she made the connection. A slow, knowing smile spread across her face. "Why not? Come on down, sweetie. You're among friends here. We don't bite." She hesitated an instant, looking at Dizzy Devil who was salivating at the sight of two potential helpings of poultry. "Well, Dizzy won't if I tell him not to."**

 **"Ducks yummy!" The Tasmanian Devil nodded happily, keen to see the new arrival but not for the same reason as Fowlmouth.**

 **Mitzi surveyed the black and white lacy outfit the newcomer was wearing. "What's an American doing working a menial job in a Japanese hotel? They usually have Koreans for that."**

 **"I'm not a hotel employee. It's the new sport – celebrity stealth cleaning!" Skylar decided to stick with her story, realising Mitzi and Ore Of Boron might compare notes. "I have to house-clean for top, famous people without them knowing. Like, you know, Extreme Ironing. It's a thing."**

 **"Mmm." Mitzi raised an eyebrow. One of the magazines Plucky had ordered forwarded to him on tour showed a Toon attempting atmospheric re-entry, surfing down from low orbit on a ceramic ironing board, heating the iron in the airstream. The same picture also appeared in another publication, '** _ **Fifty funniest re-entr**_ **y** _ **fails'**_ **though with less encouraging captions ('Who said '** _ **breaking up is hard to do**_ **?'' had been one she recalled with distaste). She had found that magazine in very poor taste – but that was Plucky for you. "Do you just do other ducks, sport cleaning? And how do you know Plucky? Are you a relative of his?** _ **" Just how I'd expect a twin sister of his to look – same genes but no Y chromosome in the chromoplasm,**_ **she thought lightly** _ **. And smaller – no need for a big enough package to hold all that male ego.**_

 **"No relation!" Skylar said hurriedly, grabbing a familiar line that Babs and Buster had happily discarded on their wedding day. "We've never even met!"**

 _ **Well, that bit's surely true. One side of the coin never sees the other**_ **, Mitzi contemplated. Aloud, she said "Well, you've had your fun. Time to go, before the Hotel staff start asking you sharp questions about your local Maid's Union dues. Sharp questions with sharp hotel cutlery for assistance." She nodded towards the street door, where torrential sleet was falling. February in Japan was not a good time to be sleeping under the stars, not that the stars could be seen through clouds that were dumping what resembled freezing rice porridge on Neo-Tokyo. "Out you go now. Nice weather for ducks, as they say."**

 **Skylar gulped. "I… haven't got a room in town. I was going to clean Captain W's suite till dawn. When he went out of the window in hero style I knew he wouldn't be back till I was gone."**

 **"I'll bet." Mitzi smiled, her eyes gleaming. "Well, don't ask me to find you a bed. Dizzy and I will be – busy." She lovingly stroked her boyfriend's wiry head-fur.**

 **Fowlmouth's eyes had not left Skylar for a second. "I got a couch, babe," he said earnestly. "I'll sleep on dat, you got the bed. All to yourself, I means. It'll be OK – on my da-gum honour."**

 **Skylar flinched. But then she recalled Fowlmouth – crass and crude he may have been, but as to trusting him – Shirley always had. True, Shirley had limitless powers of pain on tap for any Toon trying to get too fresh with her, and everyone knew it. She looked out at the glass front door, where thick half-melted snow was sticking and slowly slumping down the panes and imagined looking for shelter in that** _ **. I don't even know this city. At least Furrball knew the dry spots in the alleyways**_ **, she shivered to herself.**

 **She took a deep breath. "I really need a bed for the night," she admitted. "I'll trust you."**

 **"Ooh, interesting choice," Mitzi sat back, evidently enjoying the situation. "Fowlmouth, If I hear her yell for help, I may send Dizzy round. For a midnight snack."**

 **"Chicken wings! Drumsticks! Steak-fried chicken best. With Wasabi." Dizzy Devil grinned, exposing a mouth with teeth that seemed to belong more to a T Rex. "Dizzy love Eastern Fried Chicken too."**

 **Fowlmouth drew back, affronted. "Hey! It's not like I'm crude or anythin'. I'm a boid of me woid."**

 **"So. Up to you, sweetie," Mitzi's gaze bored in to Skylar.**

 **Skylar took a deep breath. She turned to Fowlmouth, and forced a smile. "Okay. Lead the way. I really, really need to get some sleep."**

* * *

 **Had any of the band possessed Shirley's psychic talents, they would have spotted a 'Yokai' spirit detaching itself from a Watasawa Industries autonomous food blender in the kitchen, and slowly gliding through walls taking a precise count of who and what was in the hotel. The spirit paused at the likeliest target – the suite reserved for 'Pluckford Duck, Superstar' as the hastily printed plaque on the door proclaimed. There it paused – a watchful Kitsune was inside, but decidedly no duck. For a second the spirit's spirits rose as it spotted a definite Anatidae life-trace on the next corridor – but then it gave a spectral groan. That duck was definitely female, and not its target.**

 **Frustratedly, the spirit searched through the entire hotel building and swept out through the sleet-heavy air, back to Corporate HQ to report. Pluckford Duck had eluded Corporate Justice yet again.**

* * *

 **On the outskirts of Neo-Tokyo, the sleet was also falling on an ancient, abandoned Army base that oddly enough had not been there two years ago. As day waned Unit Four Plus Two had returned in the Assault Bus and along with the Beautiful Mutant Battalion its leaders had retired to decide their next move while giving their troops the night off. Food was the first item on the evening's menu.**

 **"This food is like mondo harmonious, for the military," Shirley commented, looking down at her tray of seaweed, miso and four types of free-range tofu. She looked around the dining hall. "When we're finished, anyone have a good idea for our evening off duty? Like, get to know each other or some junk?"**

 **"We have American style Sleepover, yes?" Fujiko (presumably) beamed behind her protective steel mask, the Anime girl looking at Shirley and Tlalocopa. "See in films. Never tried. You show us how, please?"**

 **Shirley smiled. "That'd be like awesome. I've so missed those with my friends from Looniversity. We can have it in my room here. Everyone bring food or some junk."**

 _ **But no junk food**_ **, her aura warned. Those of the Beautiful Mutant Battalion who were psykers translated it for their comrades.**

 **"I bring wasabi peas!" Fujiko nodded, excitedly. "You show us how play embarrassing party games, yes?"**

 **"Do I hear a sleepover on the way?" Angelina Angelique bounced in from the next room, taking joy in the sight of Shirley's feathers suddenly drooping. "Sounds like a great idea for a bonding session. I'll bring the duct tape." She reached into her Hammerspace pocket and pulled out a roll of industrial Kevlar-reinforced tape.**

 **Shirley reached into her telekinetic skills and the duct tape vanished with a crack of displaced air. A few seconds later there was a small, unseen daylight fireball as it burned up in the atmosphere over Walla Walla, Washington. "Like no way," she snapped. "We are going to do this civilized." Her mood ring went from clean Spring green to radiant black.**

 **"That'd be a first." Angelique winked. "Don't worry, I expect it'll be fine and everyone bring plenty of nice eyeballs for us all to eat." Her expression grew dreamy. "Mmmm. Tuna eyeball sashimi. Giant squid eyeballs, even. What would that be like?"**

 **Shirley shook her head at the magpie disgustedly and turned to the rest. "Eight o'clock, fer sure, in my room. Out of uniform. Be there or be square!"**

 **She finished her meal and returned to her room, tidied it, showered and changed into a light bamboo fibre sweater. Back in Acme Acres Unit Four Plus Two this season were wearing the uniform of the International Serious Parking Task Force, which had the advantage of being able to appear in (lethal) force worldwide without attracting much attention. With or without their trademarked Unmarked Black Helicopters ™.**

 **With a sigh, she flopped down on her futon. Her aura had already taken off for the evening, claiming there was no point in sleepovers for a spirit who never slept. "Like, for a unit of psykers we don't get much chance to re-charge the spirit." Sitting in the Lotus position she began to levitate slightly as she chanted her favourite mantra:**

 **"Oh, what a Loon I am…**

 **Oh, what a Loon I ammmmmmmm…"**

 **As she entered the spirit world, her loon-senses began to prickle with warning. It was as if a dark searchlight was playing on clouds around her – instinctively she knew it boded ill for whatever it was looking for. A mental image of tumblers clicking on a huge combination lock flashed across her consciousness – and the first few symbols on it were definitely hers. 888. The Number of the Loon.**

 **"Mondo bad karma!" Shirley gasped. "Bet it's Watasawa - they're onto us!" Like a submarine crash-diving before a hunting airplane's radar fully locked on, she ducked out of the spirit plane and returned to her body, which flopped down onto the futon shaking in reaction. "They've got Yokai spirits on their team, must have traced us."**

 **Just then there was a knock on her door. She opened it to see Wae, the robotic-looking girl now clad in a kimono.** _ **Robots wouldn't be so bad**_ **, Shirley thought as she winced at the sight.** _ **They're just clever machines, working in harmony with the laws of physics. Wae is… Unlife. That's just wrong**_ **.**

 **Wae bowed. "Konnichi-wa! I bring fried squid snacks for others. Also joint lubricant. Require for me."**

 **Shirley frowned, inviting her in. "Why do you need that?"**

 **In answer, Wae held out a jointed plastic arm, rolling her kimono sleeve up. "Look, see."**

 **Shirley examines the offered limb. It was like any other plastic shop-front mannequin, except its owner was talking. The plastic showed signs of wear and repaired damage; one bad break had been evidently been repaired with crazy glue.**

 **Shirley's eyes went wide. "You don't heal? Totally bogus! So the more you move the more you… wear out. Mondo bad karma."**

 **Wae nodded, inclining her expressionless head. "Will happen someday. But have job to do first. Duty. Saying is – 'Duty is heavier than a mountain. Wearing out, is lighter than a feather'."**

 **"Bummer." Shirley shook her head.** _ **That girl like totally needs an upgrade, metabolism-wise,**_ **she thought.** _ **But we're so Not into raising inanimates like she was some store-front golem**_ **.**

 **Just then, she spotted the incoming aura of Fujiko – and instinctively stepped back, realising the literally and lethally 'drop-dead-gorgeous' Anime girl had taken off her protective mask. (*) Under it she was a standard Japanese girl, blonde hair and four-inch blue eyes that sparkled with 37% too many highlights to be allowed in public outside her homeland.**

 **Shirley rode the initial sugar-shock of seeing her and realised – though she could appreciate another female's good looks, she never found them attractive – and so survived.** _ **Only drop-dead gorgeous if you like that kinda thing**_ **, she told herself. "Like, welcome to my room. Come in."**

 **"Hai!" Fujiko beamed. "Thank you for invite! I bring lots of sake. We drink and play embarrassing party games, yes?"**

 **Shirley smiled. "We can do that." For a few seconds she thought of her best friends at Acme Acres – Fifi was enjoying a life of wedded bliss with Rhubella, and as for Babs – where was Babs? Somewhere on the film scene with Buster, she supposed. Certainly not in the neighbourhood of Neo-Tokyo.**

 **The next arrival was Yuki, again out of her usual protective costume. Shirley instinctively set up her energy shield, a repelling charm that could deflect a skunk's full spray at point-blank range, or (she hoped) the poodlador's allergic blast effects. She blinked, looking at Yuki's exposed fur for the first time. "Like – totally rad haircut."**

 **"I'm a reverse Labradoodle. I wear a reverse poodle cut." Yuki growled, throwing a bag of wasabi peas onto the low table. Her fur was a mix of shaved bare and rounded pom-poms – but where a poodle's tail traditionally ended in a puffed-out ball, hers was a shaven tip with the ball at the tail-root – and so on all over.**

 **Shirley nodded. "Than makes a weird kind of sense." She checked her shielding; oddly enough there was no sense of anything eating at it. Cautiously she let it down a fraction, prepared to slam it shut if she started sneezing or breaking out in technicolour rashes. "You're not hyper-allergenic tonight? First time I've seen you out of that DEVO hazmat suit."**

 **Yuki sniffed. "Not on duty tonight. Why waste it?"**

 **"Makes sense, fer sure. My friend Fifi's a skunk but she doesn't just spray everywhere." Shirley conceded. Her feathers drooped at the sight of Angelina Angelique and Tlalacopa, no doubt ready to add a beam or two of darkness to what had been a sunnily promising evening.**

 **"Shirley! I can tell you've got your shields up, against all sorts of infections and junk" Angelina hailed her. She winked to the Japanese contingent. "She has chondria, you know. It's the final stage before her doomed spiral into eternal hyper-chondria."**

 **"That's 'hypochondria', and well you know it." Shirley snapped. "Like anyone wouldn't get sick of you."**

 **"Ah. We've not been formally introduced." Angelina sat down, straightening her feathers. "I'm Angelina Angelique, and this is Tlalocopa – she's a victim of religious persecution. They don't allow Toon sacrifice to the Aztec gods back home. No matter how hungry they've gotten."**

 **"Is true," the Chupacabra nodded sadly. "Police complain if even try it."**

 **"And that's Shirley McLoon. She's here as expendable comic relief and our emergency food supply." Angelina winked, turning as if to address an unseen camera. "Remember, kids – if you're ever peckish you can always eat a vegan, but the vegan can't eat you!"**

 **"Fer sure." Shirley's mood ring turned black-hole black as she locked her gaze on the magpie. "And I'm totally into organic farming. I recycle too. Bonemeal and feathers are so totally good for the garden crops – yours would work just fine."**

 **Editor's note: protecting other people, not her.**

" **Well, that's us," Angelina smiled breezily. "Shirley's a radicalised vegan – though I've always thought being vegan was just a big missed steak."**

" **You're all, like, registered as mutants?" Shirley tried her best to ignore her, turning to the Japanese part of the party.**

 **"Hai!" Fujiko nodded. "We not all born mutant. Some get – difference later."**

 **"Ooh. Sounds fun." Angelina leaned forward in anticipation. "What happened to you? Have fun with some Mad Scientist with a chromoplasm scrambler?"**

 **The Anime human blushed. "I was standard girl-next-door, no powers. Then I went to local science fair. Was bitten by radioactive perverted spider."**

 **Shirley blinked. "Don't you mean – 'radioactive mutated spider ™'? That's a real meme, it's in the books."**

 **"This Anime Japan. We have giant insects in ecosystem, some girls like exotic boyfriends. Other way has many scary lawyer-san breaking down door in small hours if you try copy." Fujiko said.**

 **Shirley sighed. She picked up a bottle of rice sake and started filling glasses for everyone. "Well, here's to a totally harmonious evening – however mondo unlikely that is round here."**

* * *

 **On the far side of Neo-Tokyo, a rather snow-covered hotel was quieting down for the night. Ore of Boron had sent up for room-service and were keeping vigil awaiting Captain W to return, with a thermos of hot sake and four porcelain cups laid out ready. Down the corridor was someone who knew they were in for a disappointment.**

 **Skylar sat fully dressed on the bed, her feathers ruffled in strain. Fowlmouth had a three-room suite with a sitting-room and a small bathroom and toilet, the door of which opened straight off it. The bedroom had a luxurious king-size mattress (suited to equine or ursine royalty, no less) with a strong bolt on the door which was currently firmly shut.**

 **An hour earlier she had arrived, hurriedly cleaned her beak with the complementary hotel supplies, used the bathroom and hastened in to lock the bedroom door. Ten minutes later she had heard Fowlmouth coming in, call out "Good night, babe!" and after a few splashings, flushings and the creak of a couch, there had been silence.**

 **"Oh great," Skylar grumbled, crossing her webbed feet. "I got to go again. Or I'll never get to sleep." She had looked around for emergency alternatives – the window was sealed and triple-glazed, and there was a definite lack of convenient sinks in the room. The only way to bathroom outside was through the other room, where a rooster was hopefully sleeping – or just possibly, waiting silently to pounce on her.**

 **"When you gotta go, you gotta go." Steeling herself, she slid the bolt back as quietly as she could and opened the door a crack while holding the handle ready to slam it shut in an instant. She peeked out.**

 **The main room was dim, and the only sound that of soft snoring from the couch. Skylar crept past as if there was a sleeping dragon on it, quietly used the bathroom and tip-web-toed back towards the bedroom. She paused for a second, checking Fowlmouth was really asleep.**

 **The stocky rooster had filled out considerably since his days at Acme Looniversity, she saw – she had known that, Plucky had known that, but never paid attention. Although he would never be half the height of his old mentor Foghorn Leghorn, Fowlmouth was a trim and lean prime specimen of bantam rooster, in his prime. A special-effect bubble expanded and contracted on his beak as he snored.**

 _ **He's kinda cute,**_ **Skylar found herself thinking as she looked down at him. Her tail-feathers relaxed, and she smiled** _ **. Red wattles and comb aren't 'a Duck thing' – but they look good on him.**_

 **In an expensive and hard-to-draw Special Effect, what looked like the shadow of Plucky (male) was suddenly standing next to her – recoiling in a pose of sheer horror** _ **. You can't mean it**_ **! He silently screamed.** _ **Fowlmouth? He's a guy!**_

 **Skylar sniffed, returning to the bedroom and after a moment's hesitation, slid the bolt shut. She stood in front of the mirror, and with a quiet pop, 'unconcealed' much to the watching Plucky's fascinated horror.** _ **I noticed. And see what I've got. Maybe this isn't much….**_ **She ran a feather-finger down her slim but certainly mammalian chest** _ **but it's a lot more than Shirley could have offered him, had she ever wanted to. And I could, if I wanted to…**_

 **There was the sound of an almost-astral mallard drake retching at the idea. From various half-remembered lessons at Acme Looniversity Plucky was recalling warnings about making spin-change forms too radically different from your regular persona or staying in that shape too long. They could get their own ideas.**

 _ **This green drake doesn't give up without a fight**_ **! Plucky thought back and fought back fiercely.** _ **This feather-shape ain't big enough for the both of us!**_

 _ **Possession is nine-tenths of the law, meaty-boy,**_ **Skylar replied smugly, fixing her gaze in the mirror** _ **. Me and my reflection – we've got you outnumbered. It's a Toon Thing.**_

 _ **Oh yeah? We'll see about that!**_ **Plucky's ego-the-size-of-a-planet roared back.** _ **Defend yourself, vile vamping vulgar varlet! Varlette, verily!**_

 **For a titanic Super-heroic clash, it was remarkably quiet and with a baffling lack of collateral damage, much to the hotel's approval. But needless to say, neither of them got any sleep that night.**

* * *

 **Back at the freshly built ancient abandoned military base, Shirley was trying hard to relax, with the aid of some of the local rice sake Fujiko had brought over. It helped only slightly.**

 **She held up the first empty bottle, and sighed. "Here's how it's usually played," she told her Japanese audience. "I'll start off. I spin the bottle – and I ask a question. Whoever it points at has to answer truthfully or do a forfeit."**

 **"What sort of forfeit, Shirley-san?" Fujiko asked brightly, munching a fried squid snack.**

 **"Eat a handful of 'ghost chillies', a billion Scoville Units each?" Angelina suggested, "You know, they got that name because of when you call the diner up on the Ouija board next day and ask their ghost what killed them… that's what done it** **.** **" She reached into her pocket and pulled out a sealed bag of gold-plated Teflon whose contents seemed to radiate a furious energy. "Breaks the ice at parties and on ice floes. Handy if you need a plot Device with sub-KiloToon yield."**

 **"Even break the ice between dimensions!" Tlalocopa enthused. "Saw that when we fight Hounds of Tindaloo, teamed with MiskaToonic students last year."**

 **(*** " **The Hounds of Tindaloo: they are lean and a-famished." A dimension-spanning range of predators familiar to Shirley and many others working in MSTYCTK [More-Special-Than-You're-Cleared-To Know] Units, the hungry canines scent weak spots in the Universe where curry chefs have explored Forbidden Recipes and taken things one step beyond The Vindaloo That Must Not Be. Evidently the strength of the curry exceeds that of local space-time. Usually served requiring water-cooled plates and silicone based Chapati breads, which at least don't catch fire so easily, and are low in digestible calories…)**

 **"No." Shirley sniffed. For a second she pondered, then recalled what she had seen Corporal Barnes doing in the middle of a snowdrift earlier that evening, a heavily laden infantry pack on his back. The Collie was evidently enjoying himself. "Something more military. Like, ten push-ups."**

 **"Hai!" Fujiko nodded. "What happen when bottle points at you?"**

 **"Then my turn's over, the last one to answer a question gets to spin it," Shirley said.**

 **Five heads nodded, Wae's somewhat stiffly. Shirley gave the bottle a spin on the slick surface of the aluminium table. It ended up pointing at Angelina Angelique. "Why are you bunch so totally into the Dark Side? You know how it always ends up, and it's not pretty. You Dark-side Toons sign cast-iron contracts written in the place all the lawyers go to and think you can outsmart them."**

 **"We prefer Evil to Good because… it's nicer. In our opinion," Angelina opined. "Hey! We're not getting stressed out and guilty in this job – we get to harm people and bust stuff, and we like it. Being paid as well is just so much non-vegetarian gravy."**

 **"You get nightmares, Traumatic Stress Disorder from this job someday, Shirley – we get happy memories," Tlalocopa put in seriously. "Which is better?"**

 **"Mondo sorry I asked," Shirley muttered, and spun the bottle again. "So what is it with you Anime girls and monsters, anyway?" She asked Fujiko. "Like, on the way back here on the street there was a pretty girl walking along with something like out of the plankton but scaled up to six foot across." She shuddered, recalling the semi-transparent thing that resembled a giant gooseberry with five sets of long, convoluted tentacles – it seemed to be swimming through the air as if it was in some unseen ocean of EinsToonian spacetime. "And the girl was like, smiling like she was happy out being on a stroll with her boyfriend. None of the shoppers around seemed to even notice."**

 **Fujiko cocked her head to one side, looking at Shirley with a puzzled expression. "What mean?" She asked. "Everyone does it, hai? Not like that girl was dating a foreigner. That would be bad, shame for the family. Many monsters traditional part of culture."**

 **"Normal behaviour," Yuki growled.**

 **"That's a mondo negatory!" Shirley's feathers bristled. "That kinda thing doesn't just happen!"**

 **"Ooh, a little bit of species, even worse, anti-Phylum prejudice sneaking in here? And you claim to be the good girl around here." Angelina snickered. "I saw that happy couple too. Don't tell me you've never been even a little bit 'ctenophore-curious', Shirley? Never wanted to know what a hot date with five-fold symmetry is… like?"**

 **"Have not!" Shirley recoiled in outrage. "Not in any incarnation!"**

 **"Bet when she was a dinosaur, she only date other duck-billed dinosaurs like her," Tlalocopa said.**

 **Angelina sighed, shaking her head sorrowfully. "Sometimes we wonder if Shirley can truly be Saved. This is the girl you'll find wasting hours every night not fantasising about sexy vampires."**

 **Shirley's bill wrinkled in disgust, a useful special effect more easily explained by model-sheet needs than avian biology. She spun the bottle again, and it pointed to Wae. Shirley paused, considering her question. "How did you get brought to life?"**

 **The ex-showroom dummy gave a twitch that might have been a shrug on someone with a more flexible torso. "Not aware, till after happen. Was told, a film-crew was shooting, needed crowd scene. Producer short of actors, told keen young assistant to get more, no matter how." She was silent for a few seconds. "Assistant had special Talent, nobody knew. He go to shop recruiting extras, saw assistants on lunch break and said I want you, you, you and you … and he mis-count. One of them was me. He surprised to see what his own power did, when I move."**

" **Weirdsville," Shirley blinked. She had heard back in Acme Loo Calamity Coyote expounding the theory that the Universe had come into being from nothing for Plot Reasons – and it seemed that sort of thing was still going on. (Calamity had been taking an advanced course on Toon Physics, chewing on tough and stringy theories after school.) She spun the bottle again, and it pointed at herself. "Your turn, Wae."**

 **Wae nodded dutifully and spun the bottle: it pointed at Tlalocopa. "Major Terata-san say, you want temple of old Aztec gods back. Why that?"**

 **The Chupacabra smiled wistfully. "It was better in old days, si. Worship Tlaloc, rain-god, he solves SO many problems. No more prisons! No unemployed ever again!" She patted the hand-chipped obsidian sacrificial knife at her belt (not even the ACME catalogue offered store-bought versions.) "All go to pyramid, and Rain god control weather. Right prayers, sacrifices, no more climate problems ever again, right there."**

 **Shirley had never thought a bloodless plastic Toon could turn pale; evidently it was as much a special-effect thing as Mary Melody's blushes hovering an inch clear of her actual skin.**

 **The animate mannequin span again; it pointed at Yuki. "You were in America last year, with Evil Liaison team. You never said what you did there. Can you tell us?"**

 **Yuki bowed curtly. "I was seconded to accounting team in WashingToon – they are trying to find missing ultra-secret military units. Many have not been in touch in years. Still being paid."**

 **"Ooh! We know some of those, don't we Shirley?" Angelina cut in excitedly. "Some really Extra-Special Forces teams. Some are SO special the things they were made specially to fight – have never shown up yet."**

 **"Or gone obsolete," Yuki nodded. "We tracked down Colonel Felix Foxe of Fax Force, shut him down."**

 **"Fax force?" Shirley queried. "Like mondo old-school. Totally way past use-by date like last month's tofu."**

 **"Hai." Yuki paused, remembering. "Entire team could infiltrate a building along analogue phone lines if there was a fax machine in it; they'd materialise off the fax paper. Had been raised years before to combat conspiracy. Super-villains tried to stop world communications by cornering market in the rolls of special fax paper."**

 **"What did WashingToon need an Evil Liaison Officer like you for?" Angelina queried. "Finding furry fugitive Felix Foxe of Fax Force's a Faux fox?"**

 **Yuki shrugged. "Fax Force vanished into deep cover, all convinced there is super-villain The Digitizer, shutting down world's old analogue phones and faxes. I was liaison to WashingToon accountants. We got him."**

 **"Strange-ville. So it wasn't The Digitizer but The Beancounter, that finally caught up with him," Shirley commented. "Makes a weird kinda sense."**

 **The bottle span again and pointed at her. "What brought you into military?" Wae asked. "Even I can see you not happy with it."**

 **"She'd just graduated from an acting school, Acme Looniversity," Angelina put in. "Hey! Better end up as an army Enlister than an acting B-Lister. Who'd probably fade out forgotten after a dull season on panel games like Toonywood squares – or go with a bang on one episode of '** _ **Pro-celebrity landmine clearance.**_ **'"**

 **Shirley's tail-feathers drooped. "Fer sure, I didn't expect to end up here. But – the way uncool stuff we're up against – somebody has to face it. I'm qualified, so it's my karma. And I can't leave it to these mondo dark-side Toons." She cast a contemptuous glance at Angelina, who began preening her two-tone feathers with a look of injured innocence. "When I joined – I had a nest, and eggs. I had to leave them and help out Colonel Fenix."**

 **"Tell about that, please – what happen?" Wae asked, inclining her head to one side. "You have children?"**

 **Shirley was silent for a few seconds. Especially for a committed vegan, the idea of opening 'a whole can of worms' seemed particularly unappealing, considering how things had turned out for Brandi and Candi.**

 **Angelina snickered. "Part of the same question, I'd say. So you answer or it's push-ups for you." She looked critically at Shirley's flat pure-strain avian chest. "Thinking of such… wearing a push-up bra wouldn't help you any – nothing there to uplift."**

 **"Well, you're like zero uplifting, more like a permanent downer" Shirley snapped.**

 **Angelina cast a sympathetic-looking gaze her way. "Oh, sweet Shirley. Just because we think you'd be happier joining us on the Dark Side… just because we want to hear the exquisite little pop of your Sanity forever shattering…"**

" **And use it as our phone ringtone!" Tlalocopa put in happily.**

" **Well. Just because of little things like that – it doesn't mean we're not your Friends," Angelina concluded.**

 **Shirley ignored her, then sighed, turning to Wae. "So, you asked, and I'll tell you. I have two daughters, fer sure. But it's a long story…"**

* * *

 **On the far side of the planet, Brandi and Candi were busily preparing to leave their igloo in the snowy woods on the flank of Mount Acme. Inside the Crowninshield mansion, Margot Mallard was making her own preparations to spend some time away.**

 **"Well. That should top up the reserves awhile." She relaxed in the luxuriously custom fitted chair in the basement room as Gladys cleaned equipment bought from the adult section of the ACME catalogue. "Seeing as I might not be around for a while. Enough milk stored in freeze-frame for a week or so." Her and Plucky's son Douglas, and the maids' four ducklings (two of whom resembled the green-feathered Douglas like brothers, for some officially inexplicable reason) were sleeping in the upstairs nursery.**

 **Gladys nodded, a troubled expression on her face. She smoothed down her dairy-maid costume and turned to Margot. "We… we don't like you having to go into danger. Along with Brandi and Candi."**

 **Margot took her feather-hands in her own. "Danger got here first. Staying here won't stop it. Running won't stop it. If we don't go after it now, we might not get a better chance. Because we know where it's headed, and hopefully it won't be looking behind too much. Then..." despite everything, she snickered. "Someone is in for a surprise. My dear husband thinks we have a sweet little pair of fledglings… which in some ways they are. But they're so much more than that."**

 **"We know." Gracie had come in from the freeze-frame storage chamber, clad like her wife in a fetching (and wipe-clean) dairymaid costume. "I wish someone else could go, though."**

 **Margot smiled. "I couldn't, without you two. I'm depending on you. We've five hatchlings in the family; if the worst happens – I know you'll look after them. You'll have all the money; I've fixed all that. But I forgot nothing from Perfecto. Especially sneak attacks. Someone was about to pull one on us; now it's turnaround time."**

 **Gladys and Gracie exchanged glances. "You've got so much money. Can't you hire people to do the dangerous bits?" Gracie suggested.**

 **Margot cast them a level gaze. "Hiring a regular army wouldn't help on this one. We need particular talents, and I don't think there ARE many people like my daughters. If they are, they work for the Government – like Shirley does. Not available. Besides – this is personal." She buttoned her blouse on, not before sensuously stroking the stork feather nestling in her cleavage. "I need to see these folk don't come troubling us again. And see to it personally."**

 **Gracie cast a lingering look at the feather. "I wish we could … hold that for safekeeping. Till you're back. But I know it doesn't work like that."**

 **Margot shook her head. "Not transferrable. And like they used to say; '** _ **no tickee, no laundry**_ _ **.**_ _ **'**_ **They won't deliver to any address but me."**

 **She dressed and went outside, where a pair of small, serious loon girls were just emerging from the forest, rawhide packs on their backs and neat home-made birch bark snowshoes strapped to their webbed feet in the powder snow. Looking up, she saw a large bird break off a figure-of-eight holding pattern and head West with a sense of sudden urgency.** _ **No little bundle of joy in its beak**_ _ **,**_ **Margot thought** _ **must be a good-news feather delivery**_ _ **.**_

 **"There's a coincidence. A stork," Gracie identified the departing delivery bird. "Don't usually see them marking time. They're busy birds." They had been too busy to bring her and Gladys any daughters in six years of quietly loving companionship: apparently Margot had been right about needing a high-drama situation to catch the storks' attention. "Can't be for you – not for months. Anyway, it's gone now."**

 **"Hmm." A twinkle came to Margot's eye. "You know, that's about the spot we last saw that cute Skylar, just at the bend in the road where she went out of sight." She suddenly had an idea. "Oh – I forgot to tell you. She's turned up – in Japan. My friend Mitzi Avery phoned and told me."**

 **"She was nice. I'd love to meet her again," Gracie nodded. "We could carry on where we left off." Her eyes widened, and her tail wriggled unconsciously at the memory.**

 **"Mmmm… that would be fun. Things could get very… dramatic again." Margot paused. "Interesting. That stork was circling over where we last saw Skylar – and it headed towards the Pacific, Japan direction. Almost as if it just got a hint of where she's turned up – and headed that way pronto."**

 **"The timing's wrong for her too, to get a feather," Gracie objected. "It's been much too long. From us, anyway. And people don't just vanish and reappear."**

 **"Not usually, no. Must be one of 'those' coincidences, then." Margot deadpanned. From what she had learned from the Acme Looniversity graduates who studied such things, that would violate the Law of Conservation of Plot Energy – which rarely happened.**

 **For an instant she toyed with the idea of contacting Mitzi to pass on advice for a certain maid to 'duck and cover' and avoid strange birds bearing gifts. But the slow-flying stork would take some time to get there, and in that time – anything might happen. Besides, there was plenty of room in the nursery.**

 **Brandi and Candi came whomping up the hill on their snowshoes and halted by Margot's side. Nether seemed at all out of breath.**

 **"Mother," Candi looked up with calm gaze. "We're ready."**

 **"Beauregard and his sisters went ahead to Japan. Through the warp flow," Brandi said. "They'll be waiting for us."**

 **"I'm about ready too." Margot drew her direwolf-fur coat around her; it had been valued at three million dollars, but she was going to wear it on this jaunt regardless. After all, it had only cost her and Plucky ten minutes to part from its previous owner. Under it she wore a genuine fluffy pink Thneed, a very exclusive and expensive garment that smugglers for the Foulplay trade association had brought in from another franchise entirely. "Gladys, Gracie – look after each other. And the kids." She kissed them both farewell.**

 **"We will." Gracie said simply, tightly holding feather-hands with her wife.**

 **Margot nodded to her adopted daughters. Then she turned back to Gladys and Gracie and winked. "They say the rich stay rich by not carrying loose change," she said. "But saving on airline tickets works even better!" With that she stepped through the hole in EinsToonian spacetime Candi was holding open; a landscape of snowdrifts, cherry blossom and a distant Samurai-styled giant robot going about its daily business was visible for a second before the twins followed her and pulled the hole along with them.**

* * *

" **You look like you spent the night getting dragged through a hedge backwards," * Mitzi Avery said in neutral tones, eyeing up and down a frazzled and dishevelled Skylar who staggered down for breakfast. Her own clothing and coiffure was immaculate, and she seemed to glow with vibrant health.**

 **(Editor's note: She had a good basis for comparison. There was a Japanese game show popular that year dedicated to competitive teams doing exactly that, involving thorn hedges. It built on the previous year's smash hit, "** _ **Dragged by tractors over ploughed fields - crossways!'**_ **on the all-nudist channel.)**

 **"Rough night," Skylar croaked, her feather-hand trembling. "I must be jet-lagged still."**

 **"Oh, that's right, Skylar – you haven't been in Japan long, I take it?" Mitzi's eyes twinkled. "Oh – has anyone seen Plucky Duck? We're due to start shooting film this morning." Her eyes flashed in the direction of Dizzy Devil, who was devouring several buckets full of what was evidently the previous day's hotel leftovers that relays of the staff were bring him. "So better eat hearty, it could be a long day." She looked around. "Not like Plucky to miss any breakfast he doesn't have to pay for."**

 **"Ain't seen a feather of the guy today," Fowlmouth shrugged. The rooster looked as if he had enjoyed a night of restful sleep with pleasant dreams for company.**

 **"Hai!" Michiko agreed, the kitsune's ears down as Ore Of Boron made an entrance, ears and tails drooping in disappointment. "He no come home all night. We take shifts, wait up for him."**

 **"Maiko there say he change to Captain W, his Super-hero form, go out hunting crime," Shinobu nodded to Skylar, whose maid costume and feathers both looked in severe need of boil wash and hot steam ironing. "Japanese cities very lawful. Maybe take days to find any."**

 **"Hmm," Mitzi raised an eyebrow, looking at Skylar. "Well. We can shoot the other scenes today, the ones that don't need him. And if we need a mallard to stand in off-camera, we have one."**

 **"Meow?" Furrball asked, the unlucky kitty about to bite into a scavenged fish from the alleyway that Mitzi recognised as a deadly Fugu fish, and snatched it off him just in time.**

 **"Hey, Furrball got da-gum lucky dere!" Fowlmouth said, impressed. "Makes a da-gum change."**

 **There was a sudden rising thunder of paws in the distance. With a panicked yowl, Furrball became a purple streak of speed-lines and vanished Stage Left – just ahead of his four feline groupies, who showed a commendable turn of speed themselves.**

 **"That's what we called a Running Gag, back at Acme Loo," Skylar said. When all eyes turned to her inquisitively, she blinked. "Not that I went there. Of course not. I researched Plucky! You have to know a mega-star's habits, all their background, when you're a world-class Stealth Cleaner."**

 **Mitzi was the only one staring after the departing feline chase scene. "That mostly human anime girl, the 'Nekomimo'… her tail's a clip-on. And that cat-bell collar is just trying too, too hard. I think the only real feline DNA she's got, is her ears."**

 **"Say! I guess she wants to get hold of Furrball to get herself some more. And her ears ain't where she wants to put it." Fowlmouth winked lewdly.**

 **Mitzi sighed, and shook her head. "Hark to Mister Subtlety here," she cast the rooster a forbearing look. "Right. Breakfast – and the coach to the studio is due in half an hour." She tapped the Clipboard of Organising (+5 bonus) she carried on business trips. It harmonised with the severe yet flatteringly cut business skirt-suit she wore today. It was pure overkill, as her figure had absolutely no need for flattery.**

 **Skylar reached the table to find Fowlmouth ahead of her, politely pulling out a chair for her. "On my treat, toots," the rooster said in smooth tones "On account you don't have a room or nuthin' here."**

" **Thank you." Skylar smoothed her skirt and apron down with an instinctive gesture and accepted the rooster's offering of breakfast with relief. She cast Fowlmouth a thankful glance. The Brooklyn rooster had picked up some manners as well as some dialogue from his old mentor the Southern gentleman Professor Leghorn.** _ **He really is nice,**_ **she told herself** _ **once you see past the rough edges**_ **…**

 _ **What are you Doing?**_ **Visible only to her, what looked like the green ghost of Plucky Duck materialised at her side with a shocked howl.** _ **Don't get too cosy here, Evil non-identical twin, because you ain't staying! You're just a blue-cheese nightmare, and I'm going to wake up with you gone.**_

 _ **Sez you.**_ **Skylar's bill tilted up in contempt** _ **. I'm eating the breakfast, getting stronger. You're not. I could get very used to this**_ **.** **She smiled at Fowlmouth** _ **,**_ **who took the cue and pulled up the chair next to her.**

 _ **You can't do this!**_ **Had Plucky's spirit blenched any more, it would have faded away entirely.** _ **Ha! You said it yourself last night – you're a married mallard! Married to Margot! What about that?**_

 **Skylar ate thoughtfully for a minute before replying.** _ **Married? Am I? I've been thinking about that**_ _ **.**_ **She called to mind a familiar poster-sized photograph of Plucky and Margot's wedding (with Shirley in the back row as a bridesmaid obviously trying hard not to grit biologically hard-to-explain teeth) that adorned the living-room wall at the Crowninshield mansion.** _ **Look hard at the photo, meaty-boy. Do you see me anywhere?**_

 _ **Sure. You're me,**_ **Plucky replied promptly.** _ **But gone wrong.**_

 _ **Now, THAT'S a matter of opinion,**_ **Skylar replied smoothly.** _ **Look around here. Shall I ask the audience for a vote?**_ **She stretched and yawned, noting Fowlmouth's eyes drawn to where her blouse pulled tight as she stretched.**

 _ **But... Margot?**_ **Plucky asked, almost pleading.**

 _ **Is happily cuddled up with two other girls, and you know it,**_ **Skylar snapped.** _ **She planned that bed for four. And I should know.**_

 _ **Well, sure. That's a red-hot idea, ain't it. She asks me, her husband, permission first! And tells me everything, after!**_ **Plucky preened an ectoplasmic form.** _ **I'm the only drake in her life.**_ _ **All-girl stuff doesn't count.**_

 _ **Doesn't count? She's got a stork on the way from those two!**_ **Skylar blinked in astonishment** _ **. The way she got it, it's probably twins!**_

 _ **Well, sure... but it still doesn't count**_ **.** **Plucky's pluck had evidently returned.** _ **Anyway – first time you fall asleep – you're outa here, and you're not coming back. Nobody wakes up in a spin-change.**_

 _ **That's your plan, is it?**_ **Skylar snarked back.** _ **Looks like today's my big day, then. I'm going to have to make the most of it. Anyway, like you said – I'm a blue-cheese nightmare**_ **. She smiled invitingly at Fowlmouth, whose eyes went into a heart-shaped 'take'** _ **, If that's so – what I do – that stuff doesn't count either**_ _ **.**_ _ **So I might as well. Want to hang around and watch?**_

 **With a disgusted shudder, Plucky vanished somewhere hard to describe. Skylar tucked in hungrily to the international cuisine on the table, sure today's breakfast was the best she had ever had. As it really was the first, she was probably right about that.**

* * *

 **What would have cost many Toons their appetite had they known, was that two forces were homing in on Neo-Tokyo at that very minute. The seeking spell cast by the mages of Friends Of The Cosmos had caught a glimpse of Third Lieutenant Shirley McLoon, exact enough to arrive in the right neighbourhood. They were extremely keen on bringing righteous Justice to a mage whose spells had opened a breach between two worlds and was making a mess of two universe's laws of Toon Physics as someone moved acausal gold between them.**

 **The second force was less vengeful, but just as implacable. The patient stork carrying its traditional burden began to accelerate as he cleared the built-up area of Acme Acres, headed out over the ocean and away from any watching eyes. People 'knew' how storks behaved, and as long as they were watching, the observers were right. Unobserved now, the bird swung back its long wings to make almost a delta shape and engaged full power. A trailing shockwave started to kick up the ocean far below as it hurried to find its elusive target before it vanished.**

 **Once out above the Pacific it was soon making good time at seventy thousand feet, far above any commercial air traffic that inconveniently might see and spoil its secret special-effects high-speed dash. The Japan trip would have taken a week and more in its slow, wing-flapping mode that was all the public ever saw.**

 **Storks were making every effort to provide customer satisfaction in a shrinking market, and speedy delivery was a big part of that. They needed to; these days a worrying number of Toons were scorning the traditions and going the biological route, much to the delight of folk selling maternity wear and morning-sickness cures. Right now, its sharp beak was locked straight forward, its wings swept back sixty degrees and the supersonic shockwaves off its plumage were clearly visible in detail technically precise enough to delight any aerospace geek.**

 **For a second the film halted in freeze-frame and the stork looked round at the camera smugly. "Betcha didn't know we could do this, huh?" And then the film snapped back to full speed.**

 _ **That lucky lil' lady must be wonderin' just where I got to all them months**_ **, the stork thought regretfully, recalling a red-headed mallard maid and her three passionate friends.** _ **But don't you worry no more. I'm on my way!**_

 **Not for long, though. Its stork senses prompted it to look behind – by a staggering coincidence, bearing down on it was a squadron of sleek delta-winged jets, their wingtips folded down at triple-sonic speed and playing their Wagnerian theme tune 'Ride of the Valkyries'. The familiar orange logo of '** _ **Oodles of Poodles'**_ **was clear on their tail-planes as they hastened Westwards to make an urgent delivery of their own.**

 **A second before they could get close enough to see him, the stork suddenly reverted to slow, biologically possible wing-flapping mode – which worked about as well as could be expected at that altitude. An elevator gratuitously appeared in the empty sky for a second, the door opening long enough for a small, mournful-looking hound dressed in classic elevator attendant's uniform to announce "Going down…" in funereal tones before vanishing.**

 **"Well, gosh-darn it…." Nobody heard the stork say as it stalled, fell out of the sky and spun back down towards the clouds far below. "This is sure going to mess up my poor ol' schedule..."**

 **End Chapter Five**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

 **Dawn was breaking over Neo-Tokyo as a large bus carrying Fowlmouth's band drove through the streets towards the studio. Had any of them been looking out of the windows rather than at their scripts they would have spotted a familiar pair of rabbits strolling paw-in-paw towards the park, and no doubt stopped the bus to talk with their old friends. Nobody did, and with a special-effects sound of railroad points switching track, the path of history changed. Nobody on the bus noticed that either, but the Law of Conservation of Characters was outraged. Toons did not arrive independently in a distant land not knowing their friends were there, 'somehow' turn up in the same place at just the right time and fail to bump into each other, in a respectable script. Million-to-one chances were there to be used, not wasted.**

" **You know," Buster mused as he strolled out with Babs at his side and little Blitz secure in the cub carrier on his back, "It's true what they say about travel broadening the mind. We see wildlife and people like we'd never see at home." They stopped at the road crossing to let a large bus zip past.**

 **"That's right!" Babs agreed. "And some of the wildlife… are people, over here. If our minds get any broader our hats won't fit." She pointed to a procession of strangely zucchini-like beings that were shuffling along on the far side of the pavement on their cute little tube feet, a tentacle-fringed ring at what was presumably their head end. "There's a breed of Toon we've never used even in a crowd scene at Acme Loo. Sea cucumbers!"**

 **"You see cucumbers?" Buster fed her the line. Babs was eating for two (at least) again, puns as well as buns.**

 **"I see cucumbers." Babs confirmed, spin-changing into a rock star form with microphone, and sang:**

" _ **I see cukes! Cutey cukes!**_

 _ **Cukes so cute could make you puke!"**_

 **Buster noticed two of the seafloor creatures were improbably picking with their tentacles at the strings of small traditional 'samisen' guitars shaped something like ukuleles, playing along as Babs sang. Another wore an obviously clip-on eighteenth-century styled hairpiece of curled ringlets so incongruous that Chicken Boo would have scorned it as a disguise.**

" _ **Cukes with ukes! What a fluke!**_

 _ **There goes one in a peruke!**_

 _ **Bad enough with just a uke.**_

 _ **Hope those cukes aren't packing nukes!"**_

 **Buster sang out in reply, holding hands with his pink-furred wife. Babs sometimes slipped into the style of her old family physician Doctor Seuss. Wherever Babs would go, Buster faithfully followed.**

 **Babs nuzzled him in reply. "Heh. Not in Japan, Buster. The local ACME branch leaves out of its catalogue all the 'handy-dandy Genuine Government Surplus 1 Megatoon Landscape Rearrangers'."**

 **"Oh, yes… I remember that other exchange student, Pikadon the nuclear Poke-thing telling us, couple of years back," Buster nodded thoughtfully. "He wasn't keen on going home. Not very popular there." Not only did Acme Loo have student exchanges with other nations, but other Toon franchises as well.**

" **Remember the gag about how to fit a hundred of him on the back seat of a compact car?" Babs paused for the perfect number of comedy beats before springing the punchline "** _ **How? Poke'em on!"**_ **The brightly luminous student had a vocabulary that on the face of it consisted of only two words – but his eloquent, expressive speech used the same compression scheme as Little Beeper and other road-runners, understandable by other Warner Toons with a bit of practice.**

" **Heh. He had that neat stealth trick with his radiation" Buster recalled. "Fogging the film all around him. Natural smokescreen."**

 **"Mmm. Oh, and thinking of Physics; better check little Blitz; I can't see his ears," Babs reminded him. "I'm sure he's around. He was searching for those furry play blocks again last night, I think."**

 **Buster took off the cub-carrier and looked inside – for a fraction of a second there was only what looked like a strangely indeterminate blur, but then his son was there, smiling up at him. "Here he is." From somewhere ill-defined there was a noise of breaking surf as if a huge wave had crashed onto the shore.**

 **Babs nodded appreciatively at the familiar sound-effect. "That took me by surprise, the first few times. Till Calamity explained it."**

 **"Who'd a thunk it?" Buster asked wryly. "We've got the QuanToon fuzziest cub there is; he could be just about anywhere when nobody's looking. Just a probability wave, miles across." Buster waved back. "Till you observe him and…"**

 **"Yes – the wave function collapses. In Blitz' case, loud enough to hear!" Babs smiled, stroking their cub's ears. "He's that fuzzy his wave-form spreads over at least six dimensions. Quite a talent."**

 **"And no need for any exotic ancestry to get the schtick" Buster said, appreciating Babs' figure as she twirled round gracefully. "He's pure American jackrabbit."**

 **Babs smiled. "I should know. Not like Gogo's son; He's got Weird Talent too, but he's an… interesting mix. Not the kinda thing we'd see in our old class films. The studio were strict about that. No unlikely hybrids."**

 **"'Wuzzles' ™ (© Disney) we're not." Buster's ears instinctively indicated the trademarks in lepine semaphore. "Monsters aside, Warner Brothers® don't do that."**

 **"Oh, I don't know…" Babs mused. "Remember what used to make all the noise around Lake Acme on a summer evening?"**

 **"Plucky with his outdoor stereo, annoying the neighbours?" Buster hazarded a guess.**

 **"Heh. That, too. But I was thinking – bullfrogs. Don't see many mammal/ amphibian crossbreeds," Babs said. "Still. Nothing compared to what's in the woods around. Horse-chestnuts! That IS weird."**

 **"Must have been some party, when their parents met," Buster agreed. In Anime Japan it did not seem so unusual; he had seen Merumo' s wedding photographs proudly displayed on the wall. That the colours seemed very strange was not too surprising; her husband did not show up on regular film, and a photographer had travelled all the way from the MiskaToonic to make special arrangements. "The horse-radish; that's a scene I can imagine…"**

 **"Better not. That would bust our ratings. You don't want to be a Ratings-buster, Buster," Babs snickered. Suddenly her ears fell. "Thinking of Gogo… how are we going to get him and his family out? That building is a mix of Fort Knox and Alcatraz, with an extra side order of Evil. And he can't just quit; Merumo says he's got a lifetime contract."**

 **"A real one. When the contract expires, so do you," Buster nodded. "And at Watasawa you're STILL owned by the Company, even then."**

 **Babs shivered. "And they boast about it. Traditional Japanese style, a 'job for life'. They just take it further."**

 **"And his wife #00079886 needs factory electrical power. She's not something we could take home and plug in next to the bathroom lamp and the hare dryer," Babs said. "Assuming we could unplug her from the building in the first place…" Gogo had never been particularly into rock and roll that anyone had noticed, but his wife was definitely a Heavy Metal person. A couple of hundred tons of it, some of which was far denser than plain steel.**

 **Buster pondered, as they walked into the park. Merumo had showed them pictures of one of the products that had put Watasawa Gratuitously Heavy Industries (Evil) Inc on the road to success – an 'I die you die' Tamagotchi. It had been a best-seller, supposedly aimed at promoting responsibility and dependability amongst its owners who had to unfailingly tend its daily needs forever. For children who rapidly tired of and abandoned their toys – in future, that would be the last thing they would want to do. Literally. "Having his life-force bound to the Company… as long as the Company survives, that contract's binding." He shook his head frustratedly.**

 **"In Japan, you join a company out of school, and you don't leave. If you tried – you find out about the world's most extreme 'severance package'. Contains real severance. President Hitcher style." Babs said, her ears right down. "Merumo said they win Industry prizes for it, from other Evil Mega-Corporations!"**

 **"A tough audience," Buster noted. "Thinking of tough… I heard they won another prize for that company badge Gogo has to wear forever. Almost indestructible ceramic, Merumo said."**

 **"Hmm. I wonder how you're meant to recycle a thing like that?" Babs pondered.**

 **Her husband grinned. "By tradition – you have to put a team of wacky misfits together, go out on a highly dangerous quest and cast it to its fiery doom in one very special volcano, with suitable hazards and special effects."**

" **That does 'Ring' a bell," Babs smiled back. "At least Japan's good for volcanoes."**

 **Buster manifested a brilliant LED lightbulb above his head as an idea struck him. "Gogo's problem is a** **computer, the one that controls Watasawa. Right?"**

 **Babs nodded cautiously. "Video games aside, that's really not our thing. Someone like Calamity, or Bookworm; they specialised that way. But last time I heard, Calamity was at the SupperCollider in Akron Oh-High-Oh, and Bookworm was way over on the East Coast at the MiskaToonic."**

" **Sure. And we need someone on the spot; someone who understands the problem... someone who's got a very personal interest in it." Buster's eyebrows waggled, Groucho Marx style. "#00079886 herself! Part of her IS a computer."**

" **That's so!" Babs said, warming her adorable paws by the light of Buster's glowing Good Idea. She grinned. "My turn, Blue-boy. Time for some serious girl-talk, me and Mrs Dodo." She pulled out her phone, and her ears drooped. "Hmm. She doesn't exactly have a phone. Gogo talks to her with that ancient dumb terminal, straight out of the 1980's. Where for carrots' sake do we find one of those?"**

" **Let's see." Buster frowned for a second, looking around. Just across the road from the park was a shop just opening for the day – the subtitles to its sign read '** _ **Crazy old Mr. Tanaka's house of obsolete (but working) classic Electronics**_ **." The blue buck pointed that way. "How about we try… there?"**

" **How convenient!" Babs smiled, loosening her credit cards in her purse like a gunfighter readying her six-shooter for a quick draw. Arm in arm, the bunnies crossed the road and went shopping.**

* * *

 **Across the city in the abandoned military base, Third Lieutenant Shirley McLoon stood in line for breakfast, feeing not very refreshed after her sleepover. Fujiko had somehow heard she had danced ballet back at Acme Looniversity, and after finishing all the sake suggested they try some traditional Japanese dances. Shirley had happily agreed, channelling her relevant Japanese incarnation who recalled the stately, elegant steps of Edo period court dancing. Unfortunately, Fujiko was a modern Anime girl and had something rather different in mind.**

 **"Who'd have thought it," Angelina Angelique snickered, in the line behind her. "Miss ballerina loon here doing the Caramell-dance. Hate to say it, but you managed it pretty well, with Yuki and Fujiko."**

 **"I never hear of that dance before," Tlalocopa confessed.**

 **Angelina shrugged. "It's on ToonTube. It's an Anime classic, look it up. Never thought Shirley knew that kinda thing."**

 **Shirley raised her flat bill disdainfully. "Like, it wasn't all plank gags and anvil dodging at Acme Loo. I did a term of '** _ **Classic and middle-period internet memes 301'**_ **.** **We learned a dozen ancient Toon dances. I could have done the 'hampster-dance' too, so think yourselves lucky."**

 **"How's your spine, after all that?" Angelina asked. "If you still have one, that is…"**

 **Shirley cast her a satisfied smile. "No-problemo, like, totally. You'd sprain your every construction-line trying those moves, fer sure. But I've been doing yoga since kindergarten."**

 **"Plain yoga, Greek, or fruit flavoured?" Angelina blinked innocently, cocking her head to one side.**

 **Just then, Colonel Fenix and Major Terata walked in. All the Japanese contingent (and Corporal Barnes) stood rigidly and saluted on reflex action.**

 **"Like, Dude Sir… what's the bummer scene?" Shirley asked. There were three worried heads on the two officers, and Hal Fenix looked worst of all.**

 **"Listen up, people," Colonel Fenix said sombrely. "We just got our orders. Straight from General Snafu, in our case."**

 **"And from the Unspecified Government Ministry, for us," Major Terata confirmed to the Beautiful Mutant Battalion. His left-hand head nodded, indicating back towards the entrance. Lounging in the doorway was a broad-shouldered anime human in a sharp official styled suit with official sunglasses, cigarette and official issue cynical expression proving his identity.**

 **"Government man," Yuki whispered. "Met many just like him, as Evil Liaison Officer."**

 **Colonel Fenix cleared his throat, with an expression as if he had swallowed something nasty. "We've been ordered to shut down Watasawa right away. No more stealthy manoeuvring. Go straight for the headquarters. Take the place down, by all and every means. Immediate."**

" **Even though we are not the kind of unit that is… meant for that," Major Terata confirmed.**

 **"Like, mondo brilliant plan. A Banzai charge," a loon groused. "Like that ever ends well." Even the Japanese team were looking pensive at the prospect.**

 **"I bet Mister Suit back there is looking to make some budget cuts the fast way," Angelina murmured. "Personnel cuts. Before payday. Let Watasawa do the... downsizing."**

 **"We go same way as Fax Force," Fujiko shivered behind her steel mask.**

 **"And he's, like, not going to tell us why we've got to charge totally hopeless odds, because we're not cleared to know?" Shirley volunteered.**

 **Yuki shook his head. "Is more like...** _ **I could tell you... but I'm not going to. Because we're like that**_ **."**

" **Perk of the job, I expect," Angelina said brightly. "It's what I'd do!"**

 **Shirley winced. There was an evident reason Yuki's job was needed around here.**

 **"Sir!" Sergeant Gander stared at his commander in disbelief. "We're just going to – wade into the full strength of an Evil Mega-Corporation on its home ground? That's insane!"**

 **"We noticed. Major Terata already told his bosses '** _ **Agreeing will be difficult.**_ **' – what the Japanese say when they're too polite to say NO." Colonel Fenix nodded slowly. "Didn't make any difference. They told him, agree NOW and do it anyway."**

 **Calgari, Angelina and Tlalocopa went into a huddle. Eventually Calgari turned to Shirley, a serious expression on his sharp beak.**

 **"We're prepared to cut you in on our deal," he said. "You can join our Life Insurance scheme."**

 **Shirley blinked. "Like, this is NOT the time for trying to sell me some grody pyramid-scheme. Why should I care? If I reincarnate, I won't be able to claim a cent from my old life. I'll be a hatchling somewhere."**

 **The raven gave a wistful smile. "Because, dear barely light-side loon, the chances are we'll all be saying farewell soon, with a plan of attack like that. We might completely miss meeting you in your next incarnation; you could turn up anywhere, any time. But you don't have to. With real Life Insurance, you don't get money, but life."**

 **"Sort of…" Tlalocopa said in a rare moment of honesty.**

 **"Our phylacteries are ready, we're not worried, whatever happens," * Angelina said. "You should get one. What a team we'd make, four lovely liches serving together down the long ages!"**

 **"Places to go, people to do," Tlalocopa agreed heartily.**

 **(Editor's note: Liches are generally classed along with vampires as the absolute upper class of intelligent Undead – generally powerful magic-users who try for immortality by storing their souls in a 'phylactery' sometimes shaped as a crystal vial. (Using a gold ring is apparently copyrighted these days). The precious item is traditionally found hidden in the most secure crypt of a lich's secret Dungeon swarming with monsters, traps and other defences. Calgari's was kept somewhere much scarier – with his lawyer.)**

 **Shirley's eyes widened in horror. "Not that totally dark-side 'Life Insurance' you were laying down all the dark vibes about... if you like buy the farm you get brought back as Undead!" She stepped back, her bill wrinkled in disgust. "Totally no way!"**

 **"Aww, don't be like that," Angelina spread her feather-hands placatingly. "We're a great team, we should stick together. The three of us take the credit, you take the pratfalls. That's real teamwork. It's democratic too. If three of us like it and you don't, you're just outvoted. That's fair enough, isn't it?"**

 **"And we can all carry on working in this job, you don't have to reincarnate and start again who-knows where," Calgari added. "This team needs more Undead, it's not well 'integrated' that way." He paused, a contemplative expression on his sharp corvid beak. "Or if you fancy a career change, something using your Acme Loo training - plenty of good jobs starring in Hollywood for vampires already. You could get liches listed along with them as an ethnic minority and sue anyone who doesn't hire you for Anti-Metabolic Discrimination. What's not to like?"**

 **"Mother did not raise me to get raised again as some shambling Undead thing," Shirley drew herself up to her full height, glowering at the raven.**

 **"Ah. You have parents. You're lucky," Calgari sighed. "We three are orphans. It's all the supermarkets' fault."**

 **Fujiko had been following the conversation and put her hand up hesitantly. "You have dangerous shops? In Japan it is game shows, big hazard. More Toons go that way than flattened in traffic accidents."**

 **"Whole towns blown away, no survivors, for a big syndicated special," Wae confirmed.**

 **Calgari shook his head. "It used to be all the towns back home were full of 'Mom and Pop' stores. Since the big corporations took over most places you just can't get a Mom or a Pop anymore. So many orphans now."**

 **Colonel Fenix cast the psykers of his team a telepathic broadcast.** _ **We have our orders. After dark tonight – we go in. Def Mettle Foundry… they'll be with us. Even though I made clear they don't have to. Expect… losses**_ _ **.**_

 **"Bummer. And I was getting used to this incarnation," Shirley sighed. "At least we have today to totally balance our inner forces and count up our karma." She turned to the Addams Academy trio. "Like they have a negative number big enough to fit yours."**

 **Calgari gave a wry smile. "It's a time for tying up loose ends, true." He nodded to Angelina and Tlalocopa. "To show Shirley we're willing to start... you have a couple of confessions to make, I think?"**

 **"Don't use your feather conditioner, Shirley," Tlalocopa said. "It dangerous."**

 **"My ayurvedic, all-vegan sourced shampoo?" Shirley blinked. "It's totally rich in vibrations and filled with cosmic forces."**

 **"Not anymore." The chupacabra winked. "It was vegan, si. Added one drop my totally carnivorous version. It ate yours, converted it all to carnivorous conditioner."**

 **"Flesh-eating shampoo." Shirley flinched back at the prospect. "Major ewww..."**

 **"Major ewww? I thought he'd made Colonel by now…" Angelina non-sequitured. She cleared her throat. "I know she can't join us for any jaunt Corporal Barnes is on – but your aura's 'little family problem'… I might know something about that. It might be the last chance I get to tell her."**

 **"Like we'd believe it," Shirley grumbled. "But fer sure, you're going to tell me anyway."**

 **Angelina gave a deep sigh. "It's not me, it's my… friend." She held up her right feather-hand, and it transformed into a paw of greasy black fur, with sabre-like claws that Shirley knew could cut creatures on the astral, astaaral or negative material planes. "This is all that was left of his body; some magic-user bound his spirit there. But his astral form has regenerated nicely, and his astaaral one too. You might say – he's all there." She paused. "And I was wondering where he gets to, some nights."**

 **Shirley's bill wrinkled. "You think my aura, she'd look twice at a skull-faced monster like that? Except to target lock an 18** **th** **level fireball with (3 D6) Damage bonuses? In your dreams."**

 **"Well, I did mention Mr Claws has that noble vampire trait, he can't cross a threshold uninvited," Angelina mused. "Or… enter anywhere uninvited, really. Funny you should mention 'in your dreams.' I don't suppose you've been having any – interesting ones lately? Invites in dreams are legally valid, on the spirit plane. Like he is."**

 **"Like I'd never…" Suddenly Shirley froze up, special-effect icicles suddenly festooning her plumage. She could not deny it** _ **. I had those wild wet nightmares. I looked forward to them, even. I invited all kinds of junk. And when my aura got back into my body next morning she complained it was so totally icky like I'd been…**_ **Her plumage turned a slide-show sequence of green, spotted and plaid in special-effect nausea.**

 **"That good trick!" Fujiko said brightly, looking on. "Urban indoor camouflage, hai! That last one make perfect match for curtains at Headquarters."**

 **"Morning-sickness in solidarity with your aura; must be a 'light-side thing'", Calgari suggested. "Look on the bright side! Whatever happens to you at Watasawa, through your aura your line lives on. Sort of."**

 **Shirley ignored him. She looked around, spotting Corporal Barnes diligently checking his military issue First Aid kit in readiness for action, and his "Kit, Aid, Last, tri-fold excavation tool M1994" * clipped neatly at his belt. (Editor's note: Last-aid kit = a shovel.)**

 _ **As soon as he's out of sight, my aura can, like, get back here**_ **, she told herself glumly** _ **. What am I going to tell her?**_

* * *

 **Back on the far side of Neo-Tokyo, on the roof above the concert hall, six black-clad figures moved in the shadows. Freshly repaired stealth suits and ninja masks blended in with the background – the high-tech material matching any environment, be it black shadows, black clouds or black sunshine. The leader gestured forwards cautiously. Pluckford Duck was definitely not in the hotel, so this was the other place he was likely to be. And this time the Watasawa team were playing it safer: not infiltrating through the Flugelhorn's exhaust trench, when it was liable to start up. They were going to look at the other end of the building, which should be no such trouble. Spreading out, they began to search for a quick and secret way into the building.**

* * *

 **Inside that same venue, Fowlmouth was showing Skylar around the stage. "Some show it'll be, toots!" The stocky rooster enthused. "That's Dizzy's drum kit – see dem water-cooling pipes? Diz plays a real hot set. Ain't no other drummer in the biz plays Extratone like dat. Not wit' no 1000 BPM drum machine, every da-gum beat by hand."**

" **That's right!" Vinnie Deer agreed, walking over to the control desk of the Flugelhorn. "And we've got the only Advanced Flugelhorn of any touring band." A team of local roadies with mecha lifting suits were on the band's payroll for moving the instruments between venues.**

" **Other bands have Flugelhorns of course. Lesser ones, though." Mitzi Avery said. "Not Advanced models. What Plucky calls retarded. And the bands that play them, retards."**

" **This Plucky guy sounds like a jerk," Skylar said. She sniffed, seeing the wary glances the rest of the band were giving her. Nobody seemed to be rushing to deny it, though. "Hey! I Stealth Clean for famous Toons, not famous saints. I score the same if they're a jerk or not. Just because I'd lose points for filling their shampoo bottles with hair and feather remover, doesn't mean I'm not tempted. If they deserve it."**

" **Mmm." Mitzi cast her an appraising glance. Turning to Vinnie Deer, she nodded. "Better check we're still in tune. Start her up."**

" **Ah-huh." The deer began flipping switches. The great tube of the Flugelhorn towered two storeys above them, wreathed in accessory equipment, wires and cables. "Inlet ramp forward in start position. Suck-in bypass doors open. Turbines unlocked, check. Fuel turbopumps turning… fuel pressure A-ok. Borane injection ready. Ignition!"**

 **There was a bright green flash as the melodic instrument stared up, its exhaust plume roaring down into the pit below. The room began to shake, and the big steel sound mirrors tilted to focus the full volume onto where the audience would be. Concrete chipped and the pieces danced in the air as the shockwaves bounced merrily.**

" **Better stay clear o' dat end, toots," Fowlmouth warned Skylar and pointed up at the wide air intake. "See dat inlet?" What looked like a sudden cloud of vapour flashed into existence in a halo around it. "Dat's on account it's goin' in supersonic – and I don't mean no hedgehog."**

" **A-huh," Vinnie Deer nodded. "Don't want to get pulled into that. Likely it'd hurt, all them turbines. And the afterburner. Kinda hot."**

" **I heard about one concert, Plucky insisted the venue seal all the doors and windows airtight to stop anyone outside hearing the gig for free," Skylar said. "Sucked all the air out of the building." Her ears were popping already as the flugelhorn swallowed a hundred pounds a second.**

" **That won't happen here," Mitzi Avery said firmly. She pressed a remote control, and a large hatch in the ceiling instantly flicked open, exposing the snow-laden morning sky. Super-hurricane force air rushed in as pressure equalised.**

 **Had anyone been watching closely with a high-speed camera they might have seen six black streaks as of black-clad figures who just might have been standing on that roof hatch plummet towards the Flugelhorn's triple-shock inlet. But they were there and gone unseen extremely fast – by reputation, almost like Ninjas.**

" **Right." Mitzi Avery spin-changed into her stage outfit. "We'll start by shooting the main music sections – now we've got the hall." She nodded towards a team of a dozen camera and recording Toons who suddenly appeared. "First number and – let's take it from the top!"**

 **The band struck up its signature tune, an upgraded version of the old carol 'Silent night' that had visible blast waves reflecting around the specially tuned mosh pit, empty for the moment of frenzied dancers. Fowlmouth sang and played lead guitar, Dizzy worked the concussion instruments, Mitzi played keyboards (a classic Moog, but not a Moog synth – she had a real one, not synthesised) and Vinnie Deer ran the Flugelhorn.**

 **Ore of Boron looked on wistfully: as the support group they were expected to rehearse in their own time, not in expensively hired venue time. (Mitzi had felt this unfair and wanted to offer them a go, but apparently it was an Unspoken Unbreakable Rule in the music business.) Skylar pulled out a duster and began using it diligently on the spare instruments. The red-headed maid was visibly swaying on her webbed feet in exhaustion, but as determined to stay awake as if her life depended on it. Which in some respects it did.**

" **If only Plucky-san was here", Shinobu sighed. "What a mallard!" With the levels of sound in the venue, everyone was forced to read each other's subtitles.**

 **"What's he got that's so hot?" Skylar asked, pausing in her polishing of Fowlmouth's spare diesel-electric guitar. The rooster's usual nuclear-electric one had been left at home for the Japanese tour. "I've never met him – but he sounds flaky to me."**

 **"He a real hero! Do all hero things, he tell us so!" Shinobu protested. "Always drive to crime-scene in top-fuel dragster, three hundred miles hour. All flames."**

 **Skylar and Mitzi exchanged glances.**

 **"What else did he tell you?" Mitzi asked in neutral tones, stepping back from the keyboard for Dizzy's two -minute drum solo.**

 **Fujiko's eyes gleamed, and her tails swished. "He top extreme sports star. He say, '** _ **real men don't just ski – they avalanche surf**_ **.** **' And '** _ **plain old**_ _ **surfing is for wimps – I shark wrestle**_ **.** **'"**

 **"If he go on ski jump... he do it in Summer. On top-fuel jet skateboard!" Shinobu nodded happily. "Is real Secret Agent too. Has that as cover Identity when Super-Hero. And when on Secret work, has Super-hero as cover identity."**

 **"Triple-0 Zero, license to thrill," Mitzi murmured, deftly sidestepping a copyright lawsuit that bounced off the flugelhorn's flame deflector. There was an unexpected scent as of steamed broccoli in the air for a second before it was sucked into the exhaust pit.**

 **"Not many Toons can have full-time careers as both Super-Hero and Super-Agent," Naoko said truthfully.**

 **"Mmm." Mitzi raised an eyebrow. "That would be impressive. Not many people like that, is right. I'd say he could run three careers, even. If he wanted a spare cover identity as a farmer, he's just full of good stuff to make the crops grow."**

 **"Hai!" Ore of Boron chorused happily.**

 **Shinobu looked wistfully at the unused set of Assault Bagpipes lying forlorn by the side of the stage, being looked after by the roadies. "Where IS Plucky-san?" She complained, never ceasing to keep a hopeful eye on the door as if the masterful mallard would come swooping through it at any second, fresh from giving evil-doers a taste of wombat-themed justice.**

 **Mitzi winked. "Keep your spirits up," she told her. "I'm sure he's much nearer than you think."**

* * *

 **Far away across the Pacific Ocean, the Stork slowly flapped across the settled parts of Hawaii's Big Island just above palm-top height. In its path was a trail of hopeful Toon girls waving handkerchiefs and calling to try and attract its attention – plus others who shrieked in panic at the sight and dived down the nearest manhole to escape its notice. It took an hour to get away from prying eyes and back over the empty ocean – then with a careful look it folded its wings back again and accelerated * till its trailing wake was a sharp V of kicked-up foam.** _ **Them fast jets don't never come down here nohow**_ **… the normally sleepy-looking bird told itself, skimming the waves as his bow shock leaned back at sixty degrees.** _ **Wonder why not?**_ **Hideously high drag and fuel consumption were not something they taught junior storks about at Central Casting.**

 **(Propelled by Narrative Imperative, rated at 8300 lbs static thrust, if anyone cares…)**

 **Half an hour later it crash-landed, quivering like a jelly from hammering through the turbulence, completely out of energy. The only land around was a small coral island which an old, weather-beaten sign of World War Two vintage proclaimed as '** _ **No Fun Atoll, population zero and falling**_ **.** **' Panting for breath and feeling famished, the stork looked up at the sun to check the time. There came a sigh.**

 **"I hope that lil' redhaired lady don't vanish again too soon," The stork said mournfully, looking around for food. No traditional Stork fare was handy, but to its delight it spotted a dotted line drawn on the island, running exactly North to South. "International date line! Gotta get me some of them nice juicy international dates. I loves tryin' all them foreign foods." With that, it hurried off to look for some. Unlike taxis, for storks the clock was still ticking, even over Lunch break.**

* * *

 **In Neo-Tokyo's park there was a covered bandstand whose snow-laden roof currently shielded Babs, Buster and little Blitz Bunny from the continuing flurries as Buster worked on setting up the ancient RS-232 terminal. Not a computer in its own right, the yellowed plastic box simply connected a screen and keyboard to some distant machine down the phone line.**

 **"Hmm." The blue bunny scratched between his ears. "That's all connected up. We have power. But the screen's not lighting up. Crazy old Mr. Tanaka guaranteed it still worked, to a given value of 'work.'" The highly curved eight-inch glass screen remained inscrutably blank as befitted an inscrutable oriental device.**

 **"I have an idea." Babs reached into her Hammerspace pocket and pulled out her large 'Shojo mallet'. She looked at the old screen menacingly. "Some of these old boxes need a lot of 'percussive maintenance'… if you know what I mean?" Her chisel front teeth gleamed as she grinned fiercely and hefted the keg-sized mallet. "And if this doesn't do the trick… I hear there's a big demand for these old screens from classic rock bands who just love throwing TV sets out of hotel windows. Modern flat screens just don't break the same."**

 **"Well, whaddya know," Buster marvelled. "Now it works!" The old green text CRT screen blinked into life, as a special-effect drop of nervous sweat ran down its plastic side. "Howzabout that."**

 **"Heh. You need to be firm with machines, blue-boy. Firm, but on the other paw… cruel." Babs winked, flourishing the mallet like a gunfighter twirling her six-shooter on her finger before returning it to its Hammerspace holster. "** _ **'Hands-on maintenance'**_ **around here includes a lot of karate, Merumo said. Even dumb terminals aren't stupid."**

 **"I'll say. It's even found #00079886 without us knowing her address," Buster nodded, impressed, as a familiar stream of haiku text began to scroll up the old green screen. "Good going. But then – they do good tech, in Japan."**

 **His wife shooed him away good-naturedly. "Take Blitz and do some buck bonding, blue-boy. This is girl-talk time." She looked down at the old keyboard and cracked her adorable paws like a concert pianist limbering up to play.**

 **Buster smiled, settling the cub-carrier on his back and strolled down towards the frozen lake. Or part-frozen; half an hour ago had been the now-familiar sight of that extreme-sports club shooting out in a plume of smoke from underneath the concert hall (there must be an extreme gym in there, he thought lightly) and cratering through the ice again. This time they had really needed their Toon Regenerative skills – evidently someone had done a thorough 'slice and dice' first; something involving fast-rotating blades if he was any judge. The regeneration was rather like a finely sliced salami reassembling itself.**

 **"If you get to Acme Loo," Buster told his son, showing him the sights "you'll learn not to fear that sort of thing. Us Toons can take it. Though it still hurts." One of the black-clad team was still wrestling with a hungry mutant koi carp in the icy water, trying to reclaim some body part the fish had claimed as brunch. "Look, Blitz! A fish eating a raw Japanese. Sashimi, they call it. Turnaround is fair play."**

 **Blitz giggled, the cub's adorable ears seeming to flicker as their probable position ran through the likeliest range of possibilities. Unlike Toons such as Elmyra who had often been described as 'not all there', Blitz was certainly all there. Although the value of 'there' was never quite certain.**

 **Buster smiled, putting Blitz back in the cub carrier. "You don't have to go to Acme Loo; you might find other things you'd like better. But if you did go there – I think you'd make a real difference. Plucky's son Douglas, and Fifi's son Victor – they've already been pencilled in. You'd be in the same year, I think. But that's a long way off." Having two Toons with drama potential such as Douglas "Dauntless" Duck and Victor Ludorum LaFume in class was bound to be trouble, Buster thought – without someone with rabbit-sense around.**

 **He shouldered the carrier and wandered past the lake to where a giant video screen was displaying the news. Some of it was just the usual world stories – the invading IKEAN army had suffered a shocking defeat when enemy saboteurs had stolen the crucial hex keys and assembly instructions for their tanks: an armoured regiment was ambushed with every vehicle still flat-packed. But then his ears perked right up: Mary Melody appeared, looking grave.**

 **"** _ **Reports are coming in of more raids by the group calling themselves Gemini,"**_ **she said, the screen behind her switching to show a desert scene.** _ **"Glowindark Flats, New Mexico, was the proud home to some of the nation's most celebrated military radiation leaks and accidents, some dating back to the 1940s. Many were covered by yards of concrete-capped sand, intended to keep them safe for future generations to marvel at. Those precautions proved insufficient. The head of AEC-SPILTIT, the Government agency slightly responsible, regrets to say that the whole site is now – inert**_ **.** _ **Police are investigating."**_ **She frowned, looking down at the teleprompter as if she realised there was something very wrong with what she was saying, but unable to pin down exactly what. "** _ **Three witnesses who were at the scene at the time yesterday said they noticed nothing out of the ordinary."**_

 **Buster's ears went right up. "That's Road Runner kind of territory. Not waterfowl land; no water. What were they doing out there?" There had been a briefly seen background photograph of Margot Mallard and her adopted twin daughters being interviewed; he knew Brandi and Candi did not 'do smug' but evidently Margot was Olympic class at it. He shrugged. "Not our scene, right now." Just then he spotted a playground in the distance, and headed over there, dismissing the mystery of the mysterious Gemini from his thoughts for now. It was hardly as if he was likely to run into any of his classmates here in Neo-Tokyo.**

 **Half an hour of helping his cheerfully giggling son up and down the slides soon passed, and with little Blitz back in the cub carrier, Buster strolled back to the bandstand where Babs was waiting. "How'd it go?" He asked.**

 **Babs' eyes went briefly heart-shaped. "Oh, Buster. #00079886 is so in love with Gogo. You should have heard the poems she writes for him." She paused, recollecting; if there was one thing Acme Loo taught its graduates (Plucky excepted) it was how to learn your lines. Or someone else's, for that matter.**

 **"** _ **Green bird**_

 _ **Your flightless wings enfold me**_

 _ **Parasol, on head enfolds the daybreak**_ **" Babs intoned, her eyes closed.**

 **"Deep," Buster judged. Then he frowned. "Anything about our problem? Gogo's problem, I mean?"**

 **"Hard to say," Babs mused. "She's heard a lot about Wacky-land from him. Seems to be keen on taking a look at the place, if she can. She said…" Babs sat in a Zen pose she had often seen Shirley use, and proclaimed:**

 **"** _ **Far land**_

 _ **Of laws behaving sideways**_

 _ **We two, will strangely walk together**_ **."**

 **"Nice idea if we can swing it," Buster said, his ears dipped. "Did she say anything else?"**

 **His pink-furred wife 'booped' his nose playfully. "Now then, blue-boy," she admonished. "We talked for half an hour. But mostly girl-talk. Like Shirley's bunch might say – '** _ **you have no need-to-know!**_ **'" She gently stroked her parka-clad stomach and smiled mysteriously. "And that girl knows things." One ear dipped. "I know most people would look at her and see just a giant heavy-duty fabrication machine…"**

 **"Gee, who could think a thing like that?" Buster looked up with an innocent expression.**

 **"Well, yes, she is. On one level. Like my brother Mortimer's girl is a totally lethal thousand-year old giant mollusc. But Shelley, she's just one of the gang now. Like Calamity says – it's the software you run makes the difference, not the hardware it runs on. Shelley picked up a lot of memes, she runs those, the same as everyone else. And so does #00079886."**

 **"Regardless of her hardware. Even though if she gets sick, it's a hardware engineer not a doctor she'd need," Buster agreed. Then he frowned. "I still don't see how we're going to get them out from Watasawa, with Gogo having his life-force bound to them, and #00079886 being two hundred tons of metal plumbed into the factory. Do you?"**

 **Babs opened her mouth, about to make a grand speech. Then stopped, puzzlement on her adorable features. She shook her head. For the second time in her life, Barbara Anne Bunny had nothing to say.**

 **Back at the ancient abandoned army base, preparations were being made. Shirley was levitating, chanting her mantra as she struggled to get her inner harmony in sync and her chakras lined up; she knew she would need all her powers in the clash soon to come. Unfortunately, her aura was not helping matters.**

 _ **I can so totally not believe you did this!**_ **A blue-glowing loon shape shouted in outrage.** _ **This is like the first thing we learned from Mother? Dreams have force! Potency! You could have kicked that monster out but no – like totally the reverse. I get back in the morning, and ectoplasm… everywhere**_ _ **.**_

 **"You'd think I did it to spite you," Shirley was using up her store of harmony faster than she was making it. "Like Babs says – most accidents are caused by Toons, and visa versa."**

 _ **But, with a Monster? A dark-side monster!**_ **her aura shuddered.**

 **"This is the Anime Japan, spook-girl, Monsters are, like, accepted," Shirley snarked. "If you'd bothered showing up last night, you'd have heard Fujiko tell us." The Anime human girl had demonstrated some strange local schticks after finishing the sake – being able to make herself go transparent in places was something Shirley had thought gross, but the trick of having pixelization to cover strategic areas might prove useful and save on swimwear. "And if you hadn't ran off and left me every night, you'd have seen what was going on with me and that claw monster. I was asleep, you know?"**

 **Shirley's aura shivered** _ **. Mom got an egg by Colonel Fenix; she's happy about it. What am I going to be carrying?**_

 **Shirley looked at her astral twin, and her feathers drooped. "It's mondo likely I won't get to see it, whatever," she sighed. "Looks like we've got about as much chance on this trip as when I got the Emperor Nero mad at me. The Coliseum lions won that one. It took a couple of centuries to reincarnate – and that next one was a real bummer, riding with Atilla the hen."**

 _ **Well, I'm the same,**_ **her aura sulked.** _ **Where you go, I go.**_ **From somewhere ill-defined came the sound of Tom Lehrer's merry tune, 'We will all go together when we go** _ **.**_ _ **'**_

 **"Not this time," Shirley said firmly. "In your, like, condition, you're sitting this one out. Colonel Fenix's say-so. Regulations or some junk."**

 **Her aura stepped back in shock.** _ **That is SO dumb! I'm on the spirit plane, fer sure. What does he think soulless zombies are going to do to me?**_

 **"He's not going to risk it. You ran off screaming when I was, like, barefoot, unwed and egg-laden, remember? This time – you are so staying." Shirley snapped. "Guard home base, spook-girl."**

 **Her aura flounced off in a huff. Shirley sighed, giving up on her idea of getting back in harmony. She stood up, stretched, and went out to see how the rest of the team was preparing.**

 **Outside the accommodation block, she smiled for the first time that day. Drogo DeVere was there, working with his team on their spiky black vehicle. The male loon wore his usual earth toned tie-dyed camouflage kaftan, today supplemented by a traditional Japanese protective charm, a 'belt of a thousand stitches'.**

 **"Like, I'm mondo sorry you got dragged into this," Shirley said, as Drogo turned to meet her. "Looks like it's going to be – dire."**

 **"That's what they pay us for," Drogo said cheerfully. "It's not all throwing TV sets out of widows and driving Rolls-Royces into swimming pools." He pointed to Sparks, the armadillo drummer who was apparently fixing cameras to the turret. "But if we get out of this, we should have some great footage for our next mega-metal video."**

 **"That's right!" Sparks nodded. "Saves a fortune in CGI and special effects, doing it live." He paused thoughtfully. "If you call zombies live. Anyway, we only get the one 'take' so we'll have to make the most of it."**

 **"Would you like one of these?" Drogo asked, offering another of the hand-stitched protective belts. "Every little helps."**

 **"Fer sure! Shirley said, delighted. She smiled, feeling herself relax for a minute as Drogo fastened the belt around her, his feather-hands brushing her midriff. "I haven't worn one of these since like, my incarnation here back in the Shogunate. It's way harmonious."**

 **"I try." Drogo said modestly. "I was around then – I was a Samurai in Edo. How about you?"**

 **"Shinto priestess, at a little forest temple up in Hokkaido," Shirley said eagerly, taking Drogo's feather-hands in her own. "I wish we'd met." She paused. "Samurai are about the only warriors I ever knew who were totally into balance and harmony."**

 **"Mmm. Your pal Calgari was one too, him I did meet," Drogo said. "Said something about –** _ **'it's fun being Samurai**_ **-** _ **you can cleave a Toon from shoulder to hip with a single blow, clean your blade and sit down to write poetry about it**_ **.** **'"**

 **Shirley's beak wrinkled. The raven had vanished with his Addams Academy conspirators and the dark-side chemistry set that Watasawa produced, keen on '** _ **cooking up a batch of pretty perky per-peroxides – and a little soupcon of chlorine trifluoride.**_ **' She doubted either would be on sale at organic health-food stores, and especially not some grody compound that Angelina had been betting Calgari a dollar he could not squeeze another nitrogen into the already touchy molecule. "They are so not my pals. But I'm stuck with them, for my bad karma."**

 **"You'll work it off," Drogo assured her. "You don't have to be in this job forever."**

 **Shirley cast him a sad look. "I hope we meet in another incarnation," she sighed. "Because I have a feeling this one is going to finish real soon now."**

 **"But you're going to see it through. Not run off and leave it to someone else to sort. That's a lot of karma credit right there," Drogo said firmly. "Watasawa is something that needs to be taken down, and we're the Toons to do it."**

 **Shirley nodded. She looked up at the neo-hippie loon and smiled. Memories of other incarnations came flooding back; the great deeds and works they had done together in Ur of the Chaldees was something she could never forget. "My friends – my real friends back home, I mean – they were always asking if we'd get back together. An awesomely perfect match. And fer sure, we're harmonious. But…"**

 **Drogo nodded. "That's the downside of reincarnations you remember. When History... divorces you, it's hard to get back again."**

 **Shirley took a deep breath. "We can talk about it tomorrow." She paused, a troubled look on her face. "I really and totally hope we still can. Because I have this weird premonition that Watasawa is going to be way tougher than anyone thinks."**

* * *

 **On a hill above Neo-Tokyo there was a shimmering of distorted space, and a series of pops of displaced air as visitors arrived who had not come through airport passport control.**

 **The Facilitator of Friends Of The Cosmos ® looked down upon the world, and saw that it was bad. Harsh concrete and steel buried the stained earth; industrial pollution registered sharply on his air purity diagnostic spells. He turned to the Field Mage who had brought them here. "This is the place?"**

 **The Field Mage nodded. "Near here. The seeking spell got a half-decent trace on the one who cast the Gate spell we're after." His reptilian snout wrinkled. "It wasn't easy. A lot of interference. There's more magical and psi activity on this world than you'd expect, looking at – that." He gestured towards a distant concrete flyover crammed with blatantly combustion-powered vehicles. "About as material a culture as it gets."**

 **"Mmm. Well, you can't work a dimensional gate with anything steam-powered. * To open up another world to exploit – magic and psi are what you need." The Facilitator frowned, looking at a nearby road lined with factories. "This so-called 'civilization' obviously devours a lot of resources. No wonder it's looking for fresh worlds to suck dry. Well, we won't let it!"**

 **"This world…." The pink-furred feline checked their instruments. "Isn't that where we sent those..."**

 **He was interrupted by the Field Mage starting to chant loudly, starting a short-range but accurate Seeking spell fine-tuned on whoever had dared open up unscheduled Gates. In a minute his lipless snout grinned. "Got it. It's a 'her' not an 'it'. Avian female, high powered. And she's not alone. I'm picking up a lot of high-powered Toons very close around her." He pointed Southwards.**

 **"Right. Let's everyone rest and charge up our spells – take a few hours if you have to," the Facilitator said grimly. "Because one way or another, we stop this crime tonight!"**

 **(* Editor's note: He had evidently never encountered the Steamgoth warlocks of Dimension ZZq. And Dimension ZZr, ZZs, ZZt etc…)**

 **End Chapter Six**


End file.
